Aleksandr Ilyich Leipunskii (; ; 7 December 1903 – 14 August 1972) was a Soviet physicist. He was born in the small village of Drahle,

Grodno Governorate Grodno Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Grodno. It encompassed in area and consisted of a population of 1,603,409 inhabitants by 1897. Gro ...

Russian Poland Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish people, Polish State (polity), state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of ...

. In 1921, he entered the

Leningrad Polytechnic Institute Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, abbreviated as SPbPU, is a public technical university located in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Over the decades, it established itself as a cornerstone of technical education and research, ulti ...

, graduating in 1926. He then joined the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute, where he studied atomic interactions with electrons and molecules. In 1930, he began research into nuclear physics. He helped organize the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute in

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

and became its director. In 1934, he was sent to England for a year as a visiting researcher at the Rutherford Laboratory. In September 1937 Leipunskii was arrested as a German spy in connection with the

UPTI Affair UPTI Affair (; ) was a series of repressions against a number of scholars of the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute in Kharkov, Soviet Ukraine, by the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) during 1938, a part of the Great Purge.

, but later released. After being evacuated to Ufa, in 1941 he also became a head of the

Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics (IOP) is a UK-based not-for-profit learned society and professional body that works to advance physics education, physics research, research and applied physics, application. It was founded in 1874 and has a worldwide ...

of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and held that post until 1949. Following the war, he played a significant role in the development of nuclear power 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 ...

. In particular, he pioneered the development of Soviet

fast breeder reactor A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. These reactors can be Nuclear fuel, fueled with more-commonly available isotopes of uranium and Isotopes of thorium, thorium, such as uranium-238 and t ...

technology. In 1963, he was awarded the

Hero of Socialist Labor The Hero of Socialist Labour () was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It represented the highest degree of distinction in the USSR and was awarded for exceptional achievements in Soviet ...

. The A. I. Leipunsky Institute of Physics and Power Engineering in

Obninsk Obninsk () is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Kaluga Oblast, Russia, located on the bank of the Protva River southwest of Moscow and northeast of Kaluga. Its population is 125,376 at the 2021 census. History The history of ...

is named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leipunskii, Aleksandr 1903 births 1972 deaths Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University alumni NASU Institute of Physics Soviet physicists Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology people