Valentin Panteleimonovich Smirnov

Valentin Panteleimonovich Smirnov ( Russian Валентин Пантелеймонович Смирнов , English transcription Valentin Panteleimonovich Smirnov ; born October 2, 1937 ) is a Russian physicist who is the director of the fusion research department at the Kurchatov Institute .

He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) as a physicist in 1961 . In 1981 he completed his habilitation (Russian doctorate).

Under his direction, the Angara 5-1 pulse-operated Z-Pinch was built in 1984 at the Troitsker Institute for Innovation and Fusion Research . They used cylindrical shell arrangements instead of a simple plasma column . The imploding outer shell collided with the inner shell, generating X-rays that irradiated a fusion target. From 1989 to 1992 experiments delivered up to 40 kJ X-ray pulses with a duration of 4 ns. The idea of ​​using special wire arrangements also arose in Troitsk and was further investigated by Malcolm Haines at Imperial College in the West. The success of the machine meant that corresponding developments in the USA were followed up until the Z machine was built at Sandia National Laboratories ( Thomas Sanford ).

Smirnov has been a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1997 . In 1981 he received the Soviet State Prize and in 1997 the State Prize of the Russian Federation .

In 2005 he received the Hannes Alfvén Prize with Malcolm Haines and Thomas Sanford for their development of multi-wire arrays in Z-pinch systems. In 2002 he received the Jesse W. Beams Research Award.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian
2. ^ Jo Lister: Award of the 2005 Hannes Alfvén Prize of the European Physical Society to Malcolm Haines, Tom Sanford and Valentin Smirnov . In: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion . tape 47 , 12B, 2005, doi : 10.1088 / 0741-3335 / 47 / 12B / E02 (English, iop.org ).