The National Science Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) (), formerly the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute (UPTI) is the oldest and largest

physical science Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together is called the "physical sciences". Definition ...

research centre in

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. Today it is known as a science center as it consists of several institutes that are part of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology science complex.

History

The institute was founded on 30 October 1928, by the Government of

Soviet Ukraine The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. Under the Soviet one-party m ...

Taravarov, Ya.
Landau in a field of negative values (Ландау в области отрицательных значений)
'. Vokrug Sveta. 15 December 2008. on an initiative of

Abram Ioffe Abram Fedorovich Ioffe ( rus, Абра́м Фёдорович Ио́ффе, p=ɐˈbram ˈfʲɵdərəvʲɪtɕ ɪˈofɛ; – 14 October 1960) was a prominent Soviet Union, Soviet physicist. He received the USSR State Prize, Stalin Prize (1942), the ...

on the northern outskirts of

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

(in khutir Piatykhatky) as the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology for the purpose of research on

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies th ...

and

condensed matter physics Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid State of matter, phases, that arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms and elec ...

. From the moment of its creation, the institute was run by the

People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry The People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry (Narkomtiazhprom; ) was a government ministry in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. which operated the electric power system in the Soviet Union was subordinated to the commissariat. Brief overview The Peop ...

. On 10 October 1932 the first experiments in

nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactiv ...

in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

were conducted here. The Soviet nuclear physicists Anton Valter, Georgiy Latyshev, Cyril Sinelnikov, and Aleksandr Leipunskii used a

lithium Lithium (from , , ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard temperature and pressure, standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the ...

atom nucleus. Later the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was able to obtain

liquid hydrogen Liquid hydrogen () is the liquid state of the element hydrogen. Hydrogen is found naturally in the molecule, molecular H2 form. To exist as a liquid, H2 must be cooled below its critical point (thermodynamics), critical point of 33 Kelvins, ...

and helium. They also constructed the first triple coordinate

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

station, and the institute became a pioneer of the Soviet high vacuum engineering which was developed into an industrial vacuum metallurgy. During Stalin's Great Terror in 1938, the institute suffered the so-called UPTI Affair: three leading physicists of the Kharkiv Institute (

Lev Landau Lev Davidovich Landau (; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. He was considered as one of the last scientists who were universally well-versed and ma ...

, Yuri Rumer and Moisey Korets) were arrested by the Soviet secret police.Landau, atom splitting and secret bunker. Yak in the crackdown of Stalinist repressions in Kharkiv they set up "Kremnіevu Valley"

Ukrayinska Pravda ''Ukrainska Pravda'' is a Ukrainian socio-political online media outlet founded by Heorhii Gongadze in April 2000. After Gongadze’s death in September 2000, the editorial team was led by co-founder Olena Prytula, who remained the editor-in ...

(12 February 2021) The Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was the "Laboratory no. 1" for nuclear physics, and was responsible for the first conceptual development of a nuclear bomb in the USSR. It was damaged by shelling during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, resulting in heavy damage to the Neutron Source nuclear facility. It is guarded by the 4th State Objects Protection Regiment.

Directors

* 1929 — 1933: Ivan Obreimov * 1933 — 1934: Aleksandr Leipunskii * 1934 — 1936: Semyon Davidovich * 1936 — 1938: Aleksandr Leipunskii * 1938 — 1941: Aleksandr Shpetny * 1944 — 1965: Cyril Sinelnikov * 1965 — 1980: Victor Ivanov * 1980 — 1996: Viktor Zelensky * 1996 — 2004: Vladimir Lapshin * 2004 — 2017: Ivan Neklyudov * 2017 — 2024: Nikolay Shulga

Important institutes

Science and education institutions in Pyatykhatky.

Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology

* The Lev Shubnikov Low Temperature Laboratory at the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was founded in 1931. Lev Shubnikov was a head of the cryogenic laboratory at the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute in 1931–1937. In 1935, Rjabinin, Schubnikow experimentally discovered the

Type-II superconductors In superconductivity, a type-II superconductor is a superconductor that exhibits an intermediate phase of mixed ordinary and superconducting properties at intermediate temperature and fields above the superconducting phases. It also features the ...

at the cryogenic laboratory at the institute.J. N. Rjabinin, L.W. Schubnikow, Magnetic properties and critical currents of supra-conducting alloys, Nature, 135, no. 3415, pp. 581-582, 1935. * Institute of

, materials studies and technology *

Plasma physics Plasma () is a state of matter characterized by the presence of a significant portion of charged particles in any combination of ions or electrons. It is the most abundant form of ordinary matter in the universe, mostly in stars (including th ...

institute, Institute of high energy and

* Institute of plasma electronics and new methods of acceleration * Akhiezer Institute of

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

Other institutes

* Kharkiv University faculty of physics and technology, located nearby.

Notable alumni

* Aleksander Akhiezer * Naum Akhiezer * Semion Braude * Dmitri Ivanenko * Fritz Houtermans * Arnold Kosevich * Eduard Kuraev *

Igor Kurchatov Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (; 12 January 1903 – 7 February 1960), was a Soviet physicist who played a central role in organizing and directing the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and has been referred to as "father of the Russian ...

Oleg Lavrentiev Oleg Alexandrovich Lavrentiev (; – ) was a physicist who worked on the Soviet atomic bomb project and whose research contributions were fundamental to the understanding of thermonuclear fusion. Biography Lavrentiev was born in Pskov, into a ...

* Aleksandr Leipunskii *

Ilya Lifshitz Ilya Mikhailovich Lifshitz (; ; January 13, 1917 – October 23, 1982) was a leading Soviet theoretical physicist, brother of Evgeny Lifshitz. He is known for his works in solid-state physics, electron theory of metals, disordered systems, and ...

Evgeny Lifshitz Evgeny Mikhailovich Lifshitz (; ; 21 February 1915 – 29 October 1985) was a leading Soviet physicist and brother of the physicist Ilya Lifshitz. Work Born into a Ukrainian Jewish family in Kharkov, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire (now K ...

Boris Podolsky Boris Yakovlevich Podolsky (; June 29, 1896 – November 28, 1966) was a Russian-American physicist of Jewish descent, noted for his work with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen on entangled wave functions and the EPR paradox. Education In 1 ...

Isaak Pomeranchuk Isaak Yakovlevich Pomeranchuk (; 20 May 1913 – 14 December 1966) was a Soviet physicist of Polish origin in the former Soviet nuclear weapons program. His career in physics spent mostly studying the particle physics (including thermonuclear ...

Antonina Prikhot'ko Antonina Fedorivna Prykhotko (; 26 April 1906, Pyatigorsk – 29 September 1995, Kyiv), was a Soviet and Ukrainian experimental physicist. She was an Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and is known for her fundamental c ...

* Lev Shubnikov * Cyril Sinelnikov *

László Tisza László Tisza (July 7, 1907 – April 15, 2009) was a Hungarian-born American physicist who was Professor of Physics Emeritus at MIT. He was a colleague of famed physicists Edward Teller, Lev Landau and Fritz London, and initiated the two ...

References

External links

National Science Center, Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology
*
Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology

National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU; , ; ''NAN Ukrainy'') is a self-governing state-funded organization in Ukraine that is the main center of development of Science and technology in Ukraine, science and technology by coordinatin ...

{{authority control Research institutes established in 1928 Nuclear research institutes Research institutes in Kharkiv Institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Science museums in Ukraine Kyivskyi District (Kharkiv) Research institutes in the Soviet Union People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry