Boris Vasilyevich Kurchatov

Boris Vasilyevich Kurchatov ( Russian Борис Васильевич Курчатов ; born August 3 ^{. Jul} / 16th August  1905 ^greg. In Simski Sawod ; † 13. April 1972 in Moscow ) was a Russian radio chemist .

Life

Kurchatov was the son of a geodesist and a teacher. Soon the family moved to Simferopol . In 1923 Kurchatov began studying at the chemical faculty of the Tauride University in Simferopol, where his older brother Igor was already studying. In 1924 he moved to the University of Kazan , where he graduated from the chemistry faculty in 1927.

From 1928 to 1943 Kurchatov worked as a research assistant in the Physico-Technical Institute (FTI) of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN-SSSR, since 1991 Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN)) in Leningrad , where his brother Igor already worked. Together they studied dielectrics and semiconductors . The results formed the basis for the theory of seignette electricity developed by Igor Kurchatov . Boris Kurtschatow investigated solid state rectifiers and developed a sulphate rectifier for high current densities . In 1932 Boris Kurchatov and Vladimir Panteleimonovich Schuse investigated the influence of impurities on the temperature dependence of the conductivity of semiconductors using copper (I) oxide samples with different levels of oxygen as an impurity. They showed that at higher temperatures the conductivity becomes independent of the impurity content. This refuted the general notion that pure semiconductors without impurities were insulators . Shores Ivanovich Alfjorow quoted these results in his Nobel Prize lecture in 2000 .

From 1934 Boris Kurchatov was involved in work on artificial radioactivity , where he worked with employees of the Radium Institute (including Vitali Grigoryevich Chlopin ). Together with Igor Kurchatov, Lew Vladimirovich Myssovsky and Lew Ilyich Russinov, Boris Kurchatov discovered the nuclear isomerism of bromine in 1935 . In 1938 Boris Kurchatov received his doctorate as a candidate in the physical-mathematical sciences after defending his dissertation . After the start of the German-Soviet War , the FTI was evacuated to Kazan .

In 1943 Boris Kurchatov moved to the new Moscow Laboratory No. 2 of the AN-SSSR for the development of nuclear weapons , which was headed by his brother Igor. With his work, Boris Kurchatov was one of the founders of radiochemistry in the USSR . He received a doctorate in chemical sciences . Under his direction the first quantities of neptunium and plutonium were produced. Other transuranic elements up to the Californium were examined . The high-energy radiation facilities at the United Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna were used for many investigations (1949–1953). After nuclear weapons tests , he examined the contamination of the air, the soil and food by radioactive isotopes as well as the influence of radionuclides on the biosphere . In his last years he dealt with questions of radioecology .

Boris Kurchatov was buried in Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery.

Honors, prizes

• Order of Lenin
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor (five times)
• Stalin Prize, 2nd class (1949)
• Stalin Prize (1951)
• Lenin Prize (1959)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Федеральное агентство по атомной энергии: В Курчатовском институте отметили юбилей Б. В. Курчатова (accessed February 13, 2019).
2. ↑ ^{a b c} BORIS KURCHATOV, SOVIET SCIENTIST . In: The New York Times . April 16, 1972 ( nytimes.com [accessed February 13, 2019]).
3. ↑ Д.А. Усанов: К100-ЛЕТИЮ ПРОФЕССОРА ВЛАДИМИРА ПАНТЕЛЕЙМОНОВИЧА ЖУЗЕ . In: Известия Саратовского униве. Сер. Фпзнк . tape 5 , no. 1 , 2005, p. 108-109 ( sgu.ru [PDF; accessed February 12, 2019]).
4. ↑ Lexicon of Physics: Kurtschatow (accessed February 13, 2019).
5. ^ David Holloway: Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 . Yale University Press, 1994, pp. 99 .
6. ↑ Boris Vasil'evich Kurchatov (accessed February 13, 2019).