Ioffe, Abram Fedorovich(1880–1960), Russian physicist and organizer of science. Born October 29, 1880 in the city of Romny, Poltava province in the family of a merchant of the 2nd guild. He graduated from the Romny real school (1897), then the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology (1902).

In 1903 he went to Munich to Roentgen, the best experimental physicist, according to the recall of St. Petersburg professors, to gain experience in setting up an experiment to test Ioffe created back in his years of study at the school of the resonant theory of smell and sense of smell. At first he worked as an intern, living on his own means, then he got a job as an assistant. In 1906, having rejected Roentgen's flattering offer to stay in Munich, he returned to Russia. He was enrolled as a senior laboratory assistant at the Polytechnic Institute, in 1913, after defending his master's thesis, he became an extraordinary professor, and in 1915, having defended his doctoral dissertation, he became a professor at the department of general physics. At the same time, he lectured at the Mining Institute and at Lesgaft courses.

In 1916 he organized his famous seminar on physics at the institute. Its participants were young scientists from the Polytechnic Institute and the University, who soon became Ioffe's closest associates in organizing the Physico-Technical Institute (1918) and, more broadly, Soviet physics as a whole. In 1918, Ioffe organized the Department of Physics and Technology at the Roentgenological and Radiological Institute in Petrograd, in 1919 - the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics at the Polytechnic Institute to train physicists who could solve problems important for industry, in 1932 - the Agrophysical Institute. On his initiative, beginning in 1929, physical and technical institutes were established in large industrial cities (Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Sverdlovsk, Tomsk), and the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. During the war, Ioffe participated in the construction of radar installations in Leningrad, during the evacuation in Kazan he was the chairman of the Naval and Military Engineering Commissions. In 1952-1955 he headed the Semiconductor Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Ioffe's first work, which was the subject of his master's thesis, was devoted to the elementary photoelectric effect and belonged to the same circle of classical studies as the work of J. Thomson and R. Milliken on the determination of the electron charge. He proved the reality of the existence of an electron independently of the rest of matter, determined the absolute value of its charge, investigated the magnetic effect of cathode rays, which are a stream of electrons, and proved the statistical nature of the emission of electrons during an external photoelectric effect. Ioffe's next extensive study was a continuation of his work (1905) carried out in Roentgen's laboratory. It was devoted to the study of the elastic and electrical properties of quartz and formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation. Both of these works were distinguished by phenomenal scrupulousness and accuracy, as well as an invariable desire to reduce all the observed effects into a single coherent scheme - features inherent in all students of the Ioffe school.

Another area of ​​research in which Ioffe obtained important results is the physics of crystals. In 1916-1923 he studied the mechanism of conduction of ionic crystals, in 1924 - their strength and plasticity. Together with P.S. Ehrenfest, he discovered the “quantum” nature of shifts under a given load, which received a theoretical explanation only in the 1950s, and also discovered the phenomenon of material “hardening” (Ioffe effect) - “healing” of surface cracks. Ioffe summarized his work on the problems of solid state physics in the well-known book Physics of crystals, written on the basis of lectures given by him in 1927 during a long business trip to the USA.

In the early 1930s, at the initiative of Ioffe, systematic research began on new materials at that time - semiconductors. The first work in this area was carried out by Ioffe himself together with Ya.I. Frenkel and concerned the analysis of contact phenomena at the metal-semiconductor interface. They explained the rectifying property of such a contact in the framework of the tunnel effect theory, which was developed 40 years later when describing tunnel effects in diodes. Work on the photoelectric effect in semiconductors led Ioffe to a bold hypothesis that semiconductors are capable of efficiently converting radiation energy into electrical energy, which served as a prerequisite for the development of new areas of semiconductor technology - the creation of photovoltaic generators (in particular, silicon solar energy converters - "solar batteries") . Ioffe and his students created a classification system for semiconductor materials, developed a method for determining their basic properties. The study of the thermoelectric properties of semiconductors was the beginning of the development of a new field of technology - thermoelectric cooling. The Institute of Semiconductors has developed a series of thermoelectric refrigerators, which are widely used throughout the world to solve a number of problems in radio electronics, instrumentation, space biology, etc.

In many articles published by the Physicotechnical Institute in the 1920s–1940s, Ioffe's name is not among the authors, although his contribution to them is visible to any specialist. The exceptional scientific generosity of the scientist corresponded to his moral principles and was a component of the “art to lead young employees”, about which his student, Nobel laureate N.N. Semenov wrote: “If you want the student to develop any new idea, do it quietly , trying as much as possible so that he, as it were, came to her, taking her for his own ... Do not get carried away by excessive guidance of students, give them the opportunity to take the initiative as much as possible, to cope with difficulties themselves. Among the students of A.F. Ioffe are such world-famous physicists as P.L. Kapitsa, L.D. Landau, I.V. Kurchatov, A.P. Aleksandrov, Yu.B. Khariton and many others.

Ioffe is the author of many monographs and textbooks. He enjoyed great popularity Lectures on molecular physics(1919), he wrote the 1st volume Physics course – Basic concepts from the field of mechanics. Properties of thermal energy. electricity and magnetism(1927, 1933, 1940), as well as (together with N.N. Semenov) the first part of the 4th volume Molecular physics(1932, 1935). In the mid-1930s, under the leadership of Ioffe, there was a discussion of the principles for constructing a physics course for technical universities; one of the results of these heated discussions was the publication of a remarkable course in general physics by G.S. Landsberg. Ioffe was a member of many academies of sciences: Göttingen (1924), Berlin (1928), American Academy of Sciences of Sciences and Arts (1929), honorary member of the German Academy of Sciences "Leopoldina" (1958), Italian Academy of Sciences (1959), honorary doctor of the University of California (1928) , Sorbonne (1945), universities of Graz (1948), Bucharest and Munich (1955).

ABRAM FEDOROVICH

JOFFE

(1880-1960)

Biography of one of the founders of physics, Academician A.F. Ioffe attracts close attention of historians of science.

A.F. Ioffe was born on October 29, 1980 in the small town of Romny, Poltava province. In Romny there was no gymnasium - there was only a men's real school., In which he entered. It is noteworthy that S.P. turned out to be his classmate. Timoshenko - subsequently a major mechanic, a foreign member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Ioffe became interested in physics while still at school. He often emphasized that this did not happen due to the influence of teachers, but rather in spite of him: the level of teaching at the school was very low, teachers were primarily religious officials.

As you know, before the revolution, in order to enter universities, it was necessary to know ancient languages, which were taught only in gymnasiums. Therefore, after graduating from the real school, A.F. Ioffe chose the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, where, in his opinion, one could learn physics to the greatest extent. Outstanding scientists taught at this institute, in particular I.I. Borgman, N.A. Gezehus, B. L. Rosing and others. Along with physics, Ioffe worked a lot in the field of its biological applications, which in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was more than unusual. Although these investigations did not lead to any significant results from the scientific point of view, they strengthened his conviction about the fruitfulness of the application of physics to the problems of biology.

At the Ioffe Institute of Technology, he was also engaged in purely engineering work, mainly during his summer practice.

After graduating from the Institute of Technology (1902), A.F. Ioffe, having enlisted the recommendations of N.A. Gezekhus and Director of the Chamber of Weights and Measures Professor N.E. Egorova, went to Munich, where V.K. X-ray.

During the years of work in the laboratory of Roentgen (1903-1906) A.F. Ioffe carried out a number of major studies. Among them is a precision experiment to determine the "energy power" of radium.

Works by A.F. Ioffe on the mechanical and electrical properties of crystals, carried out in the Munich years, were systematic. In the process of their implementation, using the example of crystalline quartz, he studied and correctly explained the effect of elastic aftereffect.

A.F. Ioffe to the discovery of the internal photoelectric effect, elucidation of the limits of applicability of Ohm's law for describing the passage of current through a crystal, and the study of peculiar phenomena that take place in the near-electrode regions.

All these works by Ioffe secured his reputation as a physicist who thought deeply into the mechanisms of the processes he studied and carried out experiments with exceptional accuracy that expanded the understanding of atomic-electronic phenomena in solids.

A.F. Ioffe, refusing the flattering offer of Roentgen to stay in Munich - to continue research and teaching at the University of Munich, after a brilliant defense of his doctoral dissertation there in 1905.

Since 1906 A.F. Ioffe began work as a senior laboratory assistant at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. In the Institute's physics laboratory headed by V.V. Skobeltsyn, Ioffe in 1906-1917 Brilliant work was done to confirm Einstein's quantum theory of the external photoelectric effect, to prove the granular nature of the electronic charge, and to determine the magnetic field of cathode rays (master's thesis St. Petersburg University, 1913). Along with this, A.F. Ioffe continued and generalized in his doctoral dissertation (Petrograd University, 1915) the studies begun in Munich on the elastic and electrical properties of quartz and some other crystals. Academy of Sciences, in 1914 awarded A.F. Ioffe Prize. S.A. Ivanova.

To these most important research cycles A.F. Joffe, add two more:

One of them is the scientist's theoretical work on thermal radiation, in which the classical studies of M. Planck were further developed.

Another work was also carried out by him in the physical laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute in collaboration with the teacher of this institute, M. V. Milovidova-Kirpicheva. In this work, the electrical conductivity of ionic crystals was studied. The results of studies on the electrical conductivity of ionic crystals were later, after the end of the First World War, brilliantly reported by A.F. Ioffe at the Solvay Congress in 1924, provoked a lively discussion among its famous participants, and received their full recognition.

In 1926 Ya.I. Frenkel, based on the experiments of A.F. Ioffe and M. V. Milovidova-Kirpicheva on the thermal dissociation of the lattice, developed the kinetic theory of transport phenomena in solids, and in 1933 developed the hole theory of the electrical conductivity of semiconductors.

Along with intensive research work, A.F. Ioffe devoted a lot of time and energy to teaching. He lectured not only at the Polytechnic Institute, where he became a professor in 1915, but also at P.F. Lesgaft, at the Mining Institute and at the university. However, the most important thing in this activity of Ioffe was the organization in 1916 of a seminar on new physics at the Polytechnic Institute. It was during these years that A.F. Ioffe - first a participant, and then the leader of the seminar - developed that wonderful style of conducting such meetings, which created him a well-deserved fame and characterized him as the head of the school. The Ioffe seminar at the Polytechnical Institute is rightfully considered the most important center of crystal physics.

The development of plans for the physico-technical department of the future State X-ray and Radiological Institute was undertaken by A.F. Ioffe. This institute was established on September 23, 1918, and in 1921, its physico-technical department became an independent State Physico-Technical X-ray Institute (PTI), which was headed by A.F. Ioffe.

Along with the creation of the FTI, A.F. Ioffe is credited with the organization in 1919 at the Polytechnic Institute of a new type of faculty: physical and mechanical, of which he was also dean for more than 30 years.

Scientific work of A.F. Ioffe was concentrated within the walls of the FTI, one of the laboratories of which he invariably headed, although the subject of her research, as well as the name, have undergone changes. In the 1920s, the main direction of work was the study of the mechanical and electronic properties of solids.

The beginning of the 1930s was marked by the transition of the Physicotechnical Institute to a new topic. One of the main directions was nuclear physics. A.F. Ioffe was directly involved in it, but observing the rapid rise of this area of ​​physics, he quickly appreciated its future role in the further progress of science and technology. Therefore, since the end of 1932, nuclear physics has firmly entered the subject of the work of the Physicotechnical Institute.

Since the beginning of the 30s, A.F. Ioffe focused on another problem - the problem of semiconductor physics, and his laboratory at the Physicotechnical Institute became the laboratory of semiconductors.

In 1950 A.F. Ioffe developed a theory on the basis of which the requirements were formulated for semiconductor materials used in thermopiles and providing the maximum value of their efficiency. Following this, in 1951, L.S. Stilbans under the direction of A.F. Ioffe and Yu.P. Maslakovets developed the world's first refrigerator. This was the beginning of the development of a new field of technology - thermoelectric cooling. Corresponding refrigerators and thermostats are now widely used throughout the world to solve a number of problems in radio electronics, instrumentation, medicine, space biology, and other fields of science and technology.

The last years of A.F. Ioffe passed under the sign of joyful creativity within the walls of the newly created Institute of Semiconductors. Since 1954, the number of publications of the venerable scientist in scientific journals, reflecting his scientific activity, has increased dramatically. His performance could not but arouse surprise and admiration. No wonder one of the books of A.F. Ioffe on the topic of thermoelectricity was called the "bible of thermoelectricity".

Abram Fedorovich died on October 14, 1960, two weeks before his 80th birthday. But thanks to his outstanding abilities as a physicist and organizer of science, thanks to his high personal qualities, Abram Fedorovich Ioffe managed to create exceptionally favorable ground for the rapid maturation of talents within the walls of the Physicotechnical Institute. This is his enduring merit to the Motherland and science.

2000

Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:	Romny, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire
Date of death:
Place of death:	Leningrad, USSR
Scientific area:
Place of work:	Petrograd, then Leningrad, Polytechnic Institute, Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology (founder and director), Agrophysical Institute (founder)
Alma mater:	Institute of Technology, University of Munich
Supervisor:	V. K. Roentgen
Notable students:	P. L. Kapitsa, N. N. Semyonov, A. P. Aleksandrov, Ya. B. Zeldovich, B. P. Konstantinov, I. V. Kurchatov, Yu. B. Khariton
Known as:	Physicist, organizer of science, founder of the Soviet physical school ("father of Soviet physics")
Awards and prizes:

Awards and titles

In popular culture

Addresses in St. Petersburg

(October 17 (29), 1880, Romny, Poltava province - October 14, 1960, Leningrad) - Russian and Soviet physicist, organizer of science, commonly referred to as the "father of Soviet physics", academician (1920), vice president of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1942-1945 ), the founder of a scientific school that gave rise to many outstanding Soviet physicists, such as A. Aleksandrov, M. Bronstein, J. Dorfman, P. Kapitsa, I. Kikoin, B. Konstantinov, I. Kurchatov, N. Semyonov, Ya. Frenkel and other.

Biography

Born in 1880 in the family of a merchant of the second guild Faivish (Fyodor Vasilievich) Ioffe and housewife Rashel Abramovna Weinstein. He receives his secondary education in a real school in the city of Romny, Poltava province (1889-1897), where he makes friends with Stepan Timoshenko, with whom he maintains contact even in adulthood.

1902 - graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology. 1905 - graduated from the University of Munich in Germany, where he worked under the direction of V.K. Roentgen and received a Ph.D.

From 1906 he worked at the Polytechnic Institute, where in 1918 he organized the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics to train physicists. In 1911, he converted to Lutheranism in order to marry a non-Jewish woman. Professor since 1913.

In 1911, A.F. Ioffe determined the charge of an electron using the same idea as R. Millikan: charged metal particles were balanced in electric and gravitational fields (in Millikan's experiment, oil droplets). However, Ioffe published this work in 1913 (Milliken published his result somewhat earlier, so the experiment was named after him in the world literature).

From 1913 to 1915 he lectured at the Courses of P.F. Lesgaft.

In 1913 he defended his master's and in 1915 his doctoral dissertations in physics. Since 1918 - Corresponding Member, and since 1920 - Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1918, he created and headed the Physics and Technology Department at the State X-ray and Radiological Institute, being also the President of this Institute (Professor Nemenov M.I. was the director). In 1921 he became director of the Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, created on the basis of the department and now named after him. In 1919-1923 - Chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Petrograd Industry, in 1924-1930 - Chairman of the All-Russian Association of Physicists, since 1932 - Director of the Agrophysical Institute.

Abram Ioffe - one of the initiators of the creation of the House of Scientists in Leningrad (1934). At the beginning of the Patriotic War, he was appointed chairman of the Commission on military equipment, in 1942 - chairman of the military and military engineering commission at the Leningrad City Party Committee.

In December 1950, during the campaign to "fight against cosmopolitanism", Ioffe was removed from the post of director and removed from the Institute's Academic Council. In 1952 he headed the Laboratory of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1954, the Institute of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was organized on the basis of the laboratory.

Author of works on the experimental substantiation of the theory of light (1909-1913), solid state physics, dielectrics and semiconductors. Ioffe was the editor of many scientific journals, the author of a number of monographs, textbooks and popular books, including Basic Concepts of Modern Physics (1949), Physics of Semiconductors (1957) and others.

The biggest merit of A.F. Ioffe is the foundation of a unique physical school. The first stage of this activity was the organization in 1916 of a seminar on physics. To participate in his seminar, Ioffe attracted young scientists from the Polytechnic Institute and St. Petersburg University, who soon became his closest associates in organizing the Physico-Technical Institute. On Ioffe's initiative, beginning in 1929, the Institutes of Physics and Technology were set up in large industrial cities: Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Sverdlovsk, and Tomsk. Behind the eyes, both students and other colleagues called Abram Fedorovich “Papa Ioffe” with love and respect.

Under the leadership of A.F. Ioffe, the future Nobel laureates P.L. Kapitsa, N.N. Semyonov, L.D. Landau, the largest scientists A.P. Alexandrov, A.I. Alikhanov, L.A. Artsimovich, M.P. Bronstein, Ya.G. Dorfman, Ya.B. Zeldovich, I.K. Kikoin, B.P. Konstantinov, I.V. Kurchatov, I.E. Tamm (also a future Nobel Prize winner), Ya.I. Frenkel, Yu.B. Khariton and many others.

A.F. Ioffe died in his office on October 14, 1960. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkov cemetery, a monument by M.K. Anikushin was erected on his grave.

Awards and titles

• Hero of Socialist Labor (1955).
• Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1933), winner of the Stalin Prize (1942), Lenin Prize (posthumously, 1961).
• Ioffe was a member of many academies of sciences: Göttingen (1924), Berlin (1928), American Academy of Sciences and Arts (1929), honorary member of the German Academy of Sciences "Leopoldina" (1958), Italian Academy of Sciences (1959), honorary doctor of the University of California (1928) , Sorbonne (1945), universities of Graz (1948), Bucharest and Munich (1955).

Memory

• In honor of A.F. Ioffe, the Ioffe crater on the Moon and the Akademik Ioffe research vessel were named.
• In November 1960, the name of A.F. Ioffe was given to the Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences
• In 1964, a monument to A.F. Ioffe was erected in front of the FTI building. The same bust was installed in the Great Assembly Hall of the Ioffe Institute. A. F. Ioffe.
• Memorial plaques have been installed on the buildings where Abram Ioffe worked.
• The name of A.F. Ioffe is a street in Adlershof (German. Abram-Joffe Strasse).
• On October 30, 2001, the area between the main buildings of the FTI. A. F. Ioffe and the Polytechnic University, from which Kurchatov Street begins, was given the name Academician Ioffe Square.

In popular culture

The name of Academician Ioffe is known to a wide mass of ordinary workers thanks to the song by V. S. Vysotsky "Morning Gymnastics":

Addresses in St. Petersburg

• Politekhnicheskaya st., 26 - The main building of the FTI im. A.F. Ioffe, which A.F. Ioffe led until 1950 and where he lived until 1953.
• Kamennoostrovsky prospect, 47, apt. No. 18 (1953-1956).
• Embankment Kutuzov (1956-1960).

physicist, organizer of science, academician (1920), vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1942–1945). Founder and director of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology (until 1950). Since 1945 he was a member of the Technical Council under the Special Committee and a member of the NTS PGU under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Hero of Socialist Labor (1955), laureate of the Lenin (1961, posthumously) and State (1942) Prizes of the USSR.

Abram Fedorovich Ioffe was born on October 17 (29), 1880 in the city of Romny (now the Sumy region, Ukraine) in the family of a merchant of the second guild Faivish (Fedor Vasilyevich) Ioffe. In 1888-1897 he studied at the Romny real school. Upon graduation, he moved to St. Petersburg and entered the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, which he graduated in 1902.

In 1903 he went to Munich to see the first Nobel Prize winner in physics V.K. Roentgen, the best, according to St. Petersburg professors, experimental physicist, to gain experience in setting up an experiment to test Ioffe created back in the years of study at the school of the resonant theory of smell and sense of smell. At first he worked as an intern, living on his own means, then he got a job as an assistant. During the years of work in the X-ray laboratory, A.F. Ioffe carried out a number of major studies. Among them is a precision experiment to determine the "energy power" of radium. Works by A.F. Ioffe on the mechanical and electrical properties of crystals, carried out in the Munich years, were systematic. In the process of their implementation, using the example of crystalline quartz, he studied and correctly explained the effect of elastic aftereffect.

A.F. Ioffe to the discovery of the internal photoelectric effect, the elucidation of the limits of applicability of Ohm's law for describing the passage of current through a crystal, and the study of peculiar phenomena that take place in the near-electrode regions. All these works by Ioffe secured his reputation as a physicist who thought deeply into the mechanisms of the processes he studied and carried out experiments with exceptional accuracy that expanded the understanding of atomic-electronic phenomena in solids.

After a brilliant defense of his doctoral dissertation at the University of Munich in 1905, A.F. Ioffe refuses the flattering offer of his teacher Roentgen to stay in Munich to continue joint research and teaching and returns to Russia.

Since 1906 A.F. Ioffe began work as a senior laboratory assistant at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. In the physical laboratory of the Institute in 1906-1917. brilliant work was done to confirm Einstein's quantum theory of the external photoelectric effect, to prove the granular nature of the electronic charge, and to determine the magnetic field of cathode rays.

In 1911 A.F. Ioffe determined the charge of an electron using the same idea as R. Millikan: charged metal particles were balanced in electric and gravitational fields (oil droplets in Millikan's experiment). However, Ioffe published this work in 1913, and Millikan published his result a little earlier, so the experiment was named after him in the world literature.

Ioffe's first work, which was the subject of his master's thesis, was devoted to the elementary photoelectric effect. He proved the reality of the existence of an electron independently of the rest of matter, determined the absolute value of its charge, investigated the magnetic effect of cathode rays, which are a stream of electrons, and proved the statistical nature of the emission of electrons during an external photoelectric effect.

In 1913, after defending his master's thesis, A.F. Ioffe became an extraordinary professor.

In 1914, the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded A.F. Ioffe Prize named after S.A. Ivanova.

To the most important research cycles of A.F. Ioffe needs to add two more: one of them is the scientist's theoretical work on thermal radiation, in which the classical studies of M. Planck were further developed. Other work was also carried out by him in the physical laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute in collaboration with the teacher of this institute, M.V. Milovidova-Kirpichova. In this work, the electrical conductivity of ionic crystals was studied. The results of studies on the electrical conductivity of ionic crystals were later, after the end of the First World War, brilliantly reported by A.F. Ioffe at the Solvay Congress in 1924, provoked a lively discussion among its famous participants, and received their full recognition.

At the same time, he became an active member of the Department of Physics of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society, collaborating with the outstanding Dutch theoretical physicist P. Ehrenfest, who was then working in St. Petersburg. At the same time, he does not stop the research begun in Munich. This period includes his work on the study of X-rays and the electrical properties of dielectrics, the elementary photoelectric effect and the magnetic field of cathode rays, the mechanical strength of solids and ways to increase it.

Ioffe's next extensive study was a continuation of his work done in Roentgen's laboratory. It was devoted to the study of the elastic and electrical properties of quartz and some other crystals and formed the basis of his doctoral dissertation. Both of these works were distinguished by phenomenal scrupulousness and accuracy, as well as an invariable desire to reduce all the observed effects into a single coherent scheme - features inherent in all students of the Ioffe school. After defending his doctoral dissertation (Petrograd University, 1915) A.F. Ioffe becomes a professor in the department of general physics.

Along with intensive research work, A.F. Ioffe devoted a lot of time and energy to teaching. He lectured not only at the Polytechnic Institute, of which he became a professor in 1915, but also at P.F. Lesgaft, at the Mining Institute and at the university. However, the most important thing in this activity of Ioffe was the organization in 1916 of a seminar on physics at the Polytechnic Institute. It was during these years that A.F. Ioffe - first a participant, and then the leader of the seminar - developed that wonderful style of conducting such meetings, which created him a well-deserved fame and characterized him as the head of the school.

The Ioffe seminar at the Polytechnical Institute is rightfully considered the most important center of crystal physics. A broad outlook and ability to foresee, an outstanding talent as a scientist and organizer gave Ioffe the opportunity to educate a large detachment of physicists, to show the importance of physics for technology and the national economy. The participants in the seminar were young scientists from the Polytechnic Institute and the University, who soon became Ioffe's closest associates in organizing the Physico-Technical Institute (1918) and, more broadly, Soviet physics as a whole. Well-known Soviet physicists came out of the Ioffe school, many of whom themselves became the founders of their own schools: Nobel laureates and N.P. Semenov, academicians, P.I. Lukirsky, I.V. Obreimov, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Ya.I. Frenkel, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR A.K. Walter, V.E. Lashkarev, and many others.

At the initiative of A.F. Ioffe in October 1918, a physical and technical department was created at the Roentgenological and Radiological Institute in Petrograd, reorganized in 1921 into the Physical and Technical Institute, which for more than three decades was headed by A.F. Ioffe.

In 1918 he was elected a corresponding member, and in 1920 a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Along with the creation of the FTI, A.F. Ioffe is credited with the organization in 1919 at the Polytechnic Institute of a new type of faculty: physical and mechanical, of which he was also dean for more than 30 years. The faculty became the prototype of educational institutions of this type in the country. On his initiative, starting from 1929, the Institutes of Physics and Technology were established in large industrial cities (Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Sverdlovsk, Tomsk), the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The scientific work of A.F. Ioffe was concentrated within the walls of the Physicotechnical Institute, one of the laboratories of which he invariably headed. In the 1920s, the main focus of work was the study of the mechanical and electronic properties of solids. In many articles that came out of the walls of the Physicotechnical Institute in 1920-1940, Ioffe's name is not among the authors, although his contribution to them is visible to any specialist. The exceptional scientific generosity of the scientist corresponded to his moral principles and was a component of "the art of leading young employees."

In 1924-1930. A.F. Ioffe - Chairman of the All-Russian Association of Physicists. Since 1925 - full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in 1927-1929 and 1942-1945. - Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Another area of ​​research in which Ioffe obtained important results is the physics of crystals. In 1916-1923. he studied the mechanism of conductivity of ionic crystals, in 1924 - their strength and plasticity. Together with P.S. Ehrenfest discovered the "quantum" nature of shifts, which received a theoretical explanation only in the 1950s, and also discovered the phenomenon of material "hardening" (Ioffe effect) - "healing" of surface cracks. Ioffe summarized his work on the problems of solid state physics in the well-known book "Physics of Crystals", written on the basis of lectures given by him in 1927 during a long business trip to the USA.

In 1932 A.F. Ioffe founded the Agrophysical Institute in Leningrad, which he headed until 1960.

The beginning of the 1930s was marked by the transition of the Physicotechnical Institute to a new subject. One of the main directions was nuclear physics. A.F. Ioffe, observing the rapid rise of this field of physics, quickly appreciated its future role in the further progress of science and technology. Therefore, since the end of 1932, nuclear physics has firmly entered the subject of the work of the Physicotechnical Institute.

Own scientific work of A.F. Ioffe focused on the problem of semiconductor physics from the beginning of the 1930s, and his laboratory at the Physicotechnical Institute became the Laboratory of Semiconductors. The first work in this area was carried out by Ioffe himself together with Ya.I. Frenkel and dealt with the analysis of contact phenomena at the metal-semiconductor interface. They explained the rectifying property of such a contact in the framework of the tunneling effect theory, which was developed 40 years later when describing tunneling effects in diodes. Work on the photoelectric effect in semiconductors led Ioffe to a bold hypothesis that semiconductors are capable of efficiently converting radiation energy into electrical energy, which served as a prerequisite for the development of new areas of semiconductor technology - the creation of photovoltaic generators (in particular, silicon solar energy converters - "solar batteries") . These investigations laid the foundation for entire trends in semiconductor physics, which were successfully developed in subsequent years by his students.

For research in the field of semiconductors in 1942 A.F. Ioffe was awarded the Stalin Prize.

Ioffe and his students created a classification system for semiconductor materials, developed a method for determining their basic properties. The study of the thermoelectric properties of semiconductors was the beginning of the development of a new field of technology - thermoelectric cooling. The Institute of Semiconductors has developed a series of thermoelectric refrigerators, which are widely used throughout the world to solve a number of problems in radio electronics, instrumentation, space biology, etc.

At the beginning of the Patriotic War, A.F. Ioffe became chairman of the Commission on military equipment, participated in the construction of radar installations in Leningrad. In 1942, during the evacuation to Kazan, he was appointed chairman of the Naval and Military Engineering Commissions.

The maximum approximation to practice of the results achieved in the fundamental areas of knowledge, the widest dissemination of this knowledge - such was the desire of A.F. Ioffe. Especially bright was his initiative in the creation of the famous Laboratory No. 2 (Institute of Atomic Energy, National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute"). No less important was the proposal of A.F. Ioffe to put one of his students at the head of these studies -. By the way, it was A.F. Ioffe contributed to the reorientation in the early 1930s from ferroelectric to nuclear problems and supported this work in every possible way, which created the conditions for solving the nuclear problem in the Soviet Union as soon as possible.

As part of the work on the Soviet atomic project on August 20, 1945, I.V. Stalin signs the Decree on the creation of a body for managing work on uranium - a Special Committee under the State Defense Committee of the USSR. By the same decree, a Technical Council of 10 people was created under the Special Committee, which included A.F. Ioffe. In the Technical Council, he headed the commission on the electromagnetic separation of uranium-235.

In December 1950, during the campaign to "fight against cosmopolitanism", A.F. Ioffe was removed from the post of director and removed from the scientific council of the institute. In 1952-1955. Headed the Laboratory of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1954, on the basis of the laboratory, the Institute of Semiconductors of the USSR Academy of Sciences was organized, which Academician Ioffe led until the end of his life.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 28, 1955, Abram Fedorovich Ioffe was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.

A.F. Ioffe was awarded 3 orders of Lenin, laureate of the Stalin Prize (1942), the Lenin Prize (posthumously, 1961). Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1933). Corresponding member of the Goettingen (1924), Berlin (1928) Academy of Sciences. Honorary Member of the American Academy of Sciences and Arts in Boston (1958), German Academy of Sciences "Leopoldina" (1958), Indian Academy of Sciences (1958). Member of the Italian Academy of Sciences (1959). Honorary Doctorates from the University of California (1928), the Sorbonne (1945), the Universities of Graz (1948), Bucharest and Munich (1955). Honorary Member of the French, British and Chinese Physical Societies. Honorary member of VASKhNIL (1956).

In addition to scientific achievements, his most important merit is the creation of the Soviet school of physicists, from which many prominent Soviet scientists came out. According to the variety of problems that in the 1920-1930s. its representatives, its large number, the results obtained by this school and its head, it is perhaps the largest physical school that was formed in the 20th century.

In many ways, the success of the Ioffe school was predetermined by the personal qualities of the scientist, his great talent as an experimental physicist, his outstanding organizational skills, his ability to quickly and accurately navigate the complex problems of the new physics that was being born at that time, and his flair for the new. These qualities attracted to him numerous students not only from all over our country, but also from abroad.

A.F. Ioffe died on October 14, 1960 in his office. He was buried at the Literary bridges of the Volkovsky cemetery in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). On his grave there is a monument by M.K. Anikushin.

In November 1960, the name of A.F. Ioffe was awarded to the Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. A bust of A.F. was installed in front of the institute building in 1964. Ioffe, memorial plaques were installed on the buildings where he worked. Also, a memorial plaque was installed on the building of the former real school in the city of Romny, where A.F. Ioffe. In 2005, in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of the birth of A.F. Ioffe, an international scientific seminar "the past, present and future of thermoelectrics" was held at this school. In 1988, a research ship of the USSR Academy of Sciences was named in his honor. A small planet, a crater on the Moon, a square in St. Petersburg, streets in Adlershof (Germany) and Romny (Ukraine) are named after him.

Literature

Frenkel V.Ya. Abram Fedorovich Ioffe (Biographical sketch)

// UFN, 1980, v. 132, issue. 9. - S. 11-45

The contribution of Academician A.F. Ioffe to the development of nuclear physics in the USSR: [Collection]

/ Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Fiz.-tekhn. in-t im. A. F. Ioffe, Leningrad. department of Arch. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. - L .: Science: Leningrad. department, 1980 - 39 p.