Isaak Kikoin

Isaak Konstantinovich Kikoin (Russian Исаак Константинович Кикоин; * Märzjul 15 / 28 March 1908greg in Žagarė on the northern border of Lithuania, .. † 28 December 1984 in Moscow) was a Soviet physicist.

Life and work

He was the son of a math teacher, the technical school attended in Pskov ( Pskov ), and then studied at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. Here he developed an interest in the effect of magnetic fields on the electromagnetic properties of condensed matter. With his experiments before the war he gained an international reputation. He was the first to show that the Hall effect occurs when a magnetic field on liquid metal acts, and that changes the conductivity. This experiment gained huge importance for the quantum theory of electrical conductivity.

In 1933, he discovered with his student MN Noskov the photo -electromagnetic effect ( Kikoin - Noskov effect, a photo-magnetic effect in semiconductors ).

In 1936 he measured in physical technical institute in the Urals, the gyromagnetic ratio in superconductors.

At the beginning of World War II changed his research interests to solve practical problems of the industry.

He was among the first Soviet scientists Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov started with 1943, the nuclear development and the Kurchatov Institute founded, developed in 1946 the first Soviet nuclear reactor. He examined various methods of uranium enrichment. With Fritz Lange, he worked at the gas centrifuge. In 1944, the Russian intelligence service brought the news that Americans had a large diffusion plant built for isotope separation, he presented this work a to 1953 and focused the work on the diffusion method.

In 1951 he was Hero of Socialist Labor, Academician in 1953 and 1971, the Kurchatov Medal he was awarded.