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__NOTOC__ Yakov Il'ich Frenkel (russian: Яков Ильич Френкель; 10 February 1894 – 23 January 1952) was a
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
physicist renowned for his works in the field of
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 phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the su ...
. He is also known as Jacov Frenkel, frequently using the name J. Frenkel in publications in English.


Early years

He was born to a
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in Rostov on Don, in the
Don Host Oblast The Province (Oblast) of the Don Cossack Host (, ''Oblast’ Voyska Donskogo'') of Imperial Russia was the official name of the territory of Don Cossacks, coinciding approximately with the present-day Rostov Oblast of Russia. Its site of admini ...
of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
on 10 February 1894. His father was involved in revolutionary activities and spent some time in internal exile to Siberia; after the danger of pogroms started looming in 1905, the family spent some time in Switzerland, where Yakov Frenkel began his education. In 1912, while studying in the Karl May Gymnasium in St. Petersburg, he completed his first physics work on the
earth's magnetic field Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. The magneti ...
and
atmospheric electricity Atmospheric electricity is the study of electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere (or that of another planet). The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electr ...
. This work attracted
Abram Ioffe Abram Fedorovich Ioffe ( rus, Абра́м Фёдорович Ио́ффе, p=ɐˈbram ˈfʲɵdərəvʲɪtɕ ɪˈofɛ; – 14 October 1960) was a prominent Russian/Soviet physicist. He received the Stalin Prize (1942), the Lenin Prize (1960) (p ...
's attention and later led to collaboration with him. He considered moving to the USA (which he visited in the summer of 1913, supported by money hard-earned by tutoring) but was nevertheless admitted to
St. Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter t ...
in the winter semester of 1913, at which point any emigration plans ended. Frenkel graduated from the university in three years and remained there to prepare for a professorship (his oral exam for the master's degree was delayed due to the events of the October revolution). His first scientific paper came to light in 1917.


Early scientific career

In the last years of the Great War and until 1921 Frenkel was involved (along with
Igor Tamm Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm ( rus, И́горь Евге́ньевич Тамм , p=ˈiɡərʲ jɪvˈɡʲenʲjɪvitɕ ˈtam , a=Ru-Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm.ogg; 8 July 1895 – 12 April 1971) was a Soviet physicist who received the 1958 Nobel Prize in ...
) in the foundation of the University in Crimea (his family moved to Crimea due to the deteriorating health of his mother). From 1921 till the end of his life, Frenkel worked at the Physico-Technical Institute. Beginning in 1922, Frenkel published a book virtually every year. In 1924, he published 16 papers (of which 5 were basically German translations of his other publications in Russian), three books, and edited multiple translations. He was the author of the first theoretical course in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. For his distinguished scientific service, he was elected a corresponding member of the
USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
in 1929. He married Sara Isakovna Gordin in 1920. They had two sons, Sergei and Viktor (Victor). He served as a visiting professor at the
University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
for a short period of time around 1930. Early works of Yakov Frenkel focused on electrodynamics, statistical mechanics and relativity, though he soon switched to the quantum theory.
Paul Ehrenfest Paul Ehrenfest (18 January 1880 – 25 September 1933) was an Austrian theoretical physicist, who made major contributions to the field of statistical mechanics and its relations with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition ...
, whom he met at a conference in Leningrad, encouraged him to go abroad for collaborations which he did in 1925–1926, mainly in
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
and
Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...
, and met with
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
in Berlin. It was during this period when Schrödinger published his groundbeaking papers on wave mechanics; Heisenberg's had appeared shortly before. Frenkel enthusiastically entered the field through discussions (he reportedly discovered what is now called the
Klein–Gordon equation The Klein–Gordon equation (Klein–Fock–Gordon equation or sometimes Klein–Gordon–Fock equation) is a relativistic wave equation, related to the Schrödinger equation. It is second-order in space and time and manifestly Lorentz-covariant ...
simultaneously with Oscar Klein) but his first scientific paper on the matter (considering electrodynamics in metals) was published in 1927. In 1927–1930, he discovered the reason for the existence of domains in ferromagnetics; worked on the theory of resonance broadening and collision broadening of the spectral lines; developed a theory of electric resistance on the boundary of two metals on of a metal and a semiconductor.


Celebrated discoveries

In conducting research on the molecular theory of the condensed state (1926), he introduced the notion of the hole in a crystal, three years before
Paul Dirac Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most significant physicists of the 20th century. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the Univer ...
introduced his eponymous
sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...
. The
Frenkel defect In crystallography, a Frenkel defect is a type of point defect in crystalline solids, named after its discoverer Yakov Frenkel. The defect forms when an atom or smaller ion (usually cation) leaves its place in the lattice, creating a vacanc ...
became firmly established in the physics of solids and liquids. In the 1930s, his research was supplemented with works on the theory of
plastic deformation In engineering, deformation refers to the change in size or shape of an object. ''Displacements'' are the ''absolute'' change in position of a point on the object. Deflection is the relative change in external displacements on an object. Strain ...
. His theory, now known as the
Frenkel–Kontorova model The Frenkel–Kontorova model, also known as the FK model, is a fundamental model of low-dimensional nonlinear physics. The generalized FK model describes a chain of classical particles with nearest neighbor interactions and subjected to a periodic ...
, is important in the study of
dislocation In materials science, a dislocation or Taylor's dislocation is a linear crystallographic defect or irregularity within a crystal structure that contains an abrupt change in the arrangement of atoms. The movement of dislocations allow atoms to s ...
s. Tatyana Kontorova was then a PhD candidate working with Frenkel. In 1930 to 1931, Frenkel showed that ''neutral excitation'' of a
crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...
by light is possible, with an
electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have n ...
remaining bound to a hole created at a lattice site identified as a
quasiparticle In physics, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related emergent phenomena arising when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum. For exa ...
, the
exciton An exciton is a bound state of an electron and an electron hole which are attracted to each other by the electrostatic Coulomb force. It is an electrically neutral quasiparticle that exists in insulators, semiconductors and some liquids. ...
. Mention should be made of Frenkel's works on the theory of
metal A metal (from ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, e ...
s,
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 t ...
(the liquid drop model of the
nucleus Nucleus ( : nuclei) is a Latin word for the seed inside a fruit. It most often refers to: * Atomic nucleus, the very dense central region of an atom *Cell nucleus, a central organelle of a eukaryotic cell, containing most of the cell's DNA Nucl ...
, in 1936), and
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way ...
s. In 1930 his son Viktor Frenkel was born. Viktor became a prominent historian of science, writing a number of biographies of prominent physicists including an enlarged version of ''Yakov Ilich Frenkel'', published in 1996. In 1934, Frenkel outlined the formalism for the multi-configuration self-consistent field method, later rediscovered and developed by
Douglas Hartree Douglas Rayner Hartree (27 March 1897 – 12 February 1958) was an English mathematician and physicist most famous for the development of numerical analysis and its application to the Hartree–Fock equations of atomic physics and the c ...
. He contributed to semiconductor and insulator physics by proposing a theory, which is now commonly known as the
Poole–Frenkel effect In solid-state physics, the Poole–Frenkel effect (also known as Frenkel-Poole emissionSze, S. M., ''Physics of Semiconductor Devices'', 2nd edition, Section 4.3.4.) is a model describing the mechanism of trap-assisted electron transport in an ele ...
, in 1938. "Poole" refers to H. H. Poole (Horace Hewitt Poole, 1886–1962), Ireland. Poole reported experimental results on the conduction in insulators and found an empirical relationship between conductivity and electrical field. Frenkel later developed a microscopic model, similar to the
Schottky effect The Schottky effect or field enhanced thermionic emission is a phenomenon in condensed matter physics named after Walter H. Schottky. In electron emission devices, especially electron guns, the thermionic electron emitter will be biased negative ...
, to explain Poole's results more accurately. In this paper published in USA, Frenkel only very briefly mentioned an empirical relationship as Poole's law. Frenkel cited Poole's paper when he wrote a longer article in a Soviet journal. During the 1930s, Frenkel and Ioffe opposed dangerous tendencies in Soviet physics, tying science to the materialist ideology, with remarkable courage. Soviet physics, as a result of these actions, never descended to the depths
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
did. Still, he subsequently had to forgo publishing several papers, fearing that might have unfortunate consequences. Yakov Frenkel was involved in the studies of the liquid phase, too, since the mid 1930s (he undertook some research in
colloids A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others extend ...
) and during the
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, when the institute was evacuated to
Kazan Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzan is the capital city, capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and t ...
. The results of his more than twenty years of study of the theory of liquid state were generalized in the classic monograph "Kinetic theory of liquids".


Later years

During the wartime, he worked on contemporary practical problems to help his country in sustaining the harsh fight. After the war, Frenkel focussed on seismoelectrics, also proposing that sound waves in metals might affect electric phenomena. He subsequently worked mainly in the field of atmospheric effects, but did not abandon his other interests, publishing several papers in nuclear physics. Frenkel died in Leningrad in 1952. His son, Victor Frenkel, wrote a biography of his father, ''Yakov Ilich Frenkel: His work, life and letters''. This book, originally written in Russian, has also been translated and published in English.


See also

*
Chandrasekhar limit The Chandrasekhar limit () is the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star. The currently accepted value of the Chandrasekhar limit is about (). White dwarfs resist gravitational collapse primarily through electron degeneracy pressure, compar ...
*
Poromechanics Poromechanics is a branch of physics and specifically continuum mechanics and acoustics that studies the behaviour of fluid-saturated porous media. A porous medium or a porous material is a solid referred to as matrix) permeated by an interconnected ...
*
Solid state ionics Solid-state ionics is the study of ionic-electronic mixed conductor and fully ionic conductors (solid electrolytes) and their uses. Some materials that fall into this category include inorganic crystalline and polycrystalline solids, ceramics, gla ...


References


English translations of books by Frenkel

*, 2nd edition ( Dover Publications, 1950), * *


Literature

*Victor Frenkel, Victor Yakovlevich Frenkel: ''Yakov Illich Frenkel. His work, life and letters''. (original: (ru)'' Яков Ильич Френкель'', translated by Alexander S. Silbergleit), Birkhäuser, Basel / Boston / Berlin 2001, (English).


Online


External links


Biography of Jacov Il'ich Frenkel
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Frenkel, Yakov 1894 births 1952 deaths Scientists from Rostov-on-Don People from Don Host Oblast Russian materials scientists Jewish Russian physicists Soviet physicists Soviet nuclear physicists Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Condensed matter physicists