Yevgeny Zavoisky
Encyclopedia
Yevgeny Konstantinovich Zavoisky was a Soviet physicist known for discovery of electron paramagnetic resonance
in 1944. He likely observed nuclear magnetic resonance
in 1941, well before Felix Bloch
and Edward Mills Purcell
, but dismissed the results as not reproducible. Zavoisky is also credited with design of luminescence
camera for detection of nuclear processes in 1952 and discovery of magneto-acoustic resonance in plasma
in 1958.
– a major Russian university city – for the sake of better education and well-being of their five children. There, Konstantin Ivanovich obtained a respectable job and a large apartment, which he equipped with equipment and books for home experiments with his children. Yevgeny, in particular, was keen to electromagnetism.
October revolution
of 1917 brought difficult times. Konstantin Ivanovich died in 1919 from exhaustion, and the family moved to a small rural town to survive the hunger period. They returned to Kazan in 1925. In 1926, Yevgeny entered the faculty of physics at Kazan University. By that time, he was already an experienced amateur engineer who had assembled his own radio receivers and had numerous ideas of new inventions and measurements. Zavoisky established himself as a talented student and researcher. He was sent to Saint Petersburg
to continue his studies and after returning to Kazan had worked in the laboratory of oscillations at Kazan University. After defending his PhD in 1933, he became the laboratory head. His research directions included generation of ultrashort waves; study of their physical and chemical effects on matter, including the effect on seed germination; and investigation of superregenerative effect
. The seed germination topic was a reflection of that difficult period when scientists were required to try helping the Russian economy, which was recovering from the years of wars.
. He also visited several laboratories in major Russian cities and found that the experimental techniques in this research field were undeveloped. He was particularly dissatisfied with poor detection sensitivity and spent much effort on improving it using better detectors and electronic circuitry.
Zavoisky was much interested in the pioneering results obtained by Isidor Isaac Rabi
in 1938 on interaction of molecular beams with electromagnetic waves in a static magnetic field, that is nuclear magnetic resonance
(NMR). Eight years later, in 1946, Felix Bloch
and Edward Mills Purcell
refined the technique for use on liquids and solids, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in physics
in 1952. Zavoisky too tried to detect NMR in solids and liquids around 1940–1941. He had a sensitive enough detection system and managed to obtain the resonance signals. However, the strict requirement for the spatial homogeneity of the magnetic field were likely not met. The signals were unstable and poorly reproducible and thus were discarded. The work was interrupted by the World War II
and had not been resumed.
Instead, starting from 1943, Zavoisky focused on electron paramagnetic resonance
(EPR), which is much less demanding for the homogeneity of magnetic field. On the other hand, it requires much more sensitive detection electronics, but Zavoisky was well prepared in this area. In particular he had replaced the calorimetric
(thermal) detection of C. J. Gorter by a much more sensitive electronic technique of grid current
. A further improvement was addition of a small AC
magnetic field to the main static magnetic field. This dramatically increased the detection sensitivity and allowed easy amplification of the resonance signal and outputing it directly to an oscilloscope
. In 1944, EPR signals were detected in several salts, including hydrous copper chloride
(CuCl2·2H2O), copper sulfate and manganese sulfate
. The results were revolutionary and were first not accepted even by the Soviet scientists (including Pyotr Kapitsa
). The doubts were dispersed when Zavoisky visited Moscow, assembled an EPR spectrometer from scratch and reproduced his results there. In 1945, Zavoisky defended his habilitation
on the phenomenon of electron paramagnetic resonance.
that resulted in an encircled swastika-like image projected onto the screen in front of a large audience. The demonstration crystals were soon confiscated and analyzed by a special commission, seeking relation between the experiment and Nazi Germany, and only a series of letters from scientists settled the matter.
, Zavoisky moved from Kazan to Moscow, to work in the institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
which later became the Institute of Atomic Energy
(IAE). He was then moved to the classified location Arzamas-16
and participated in the Soviet atomic bomb project
. Upon return to IAE, he worked on detectors of ultrafast processes and in 1952 developed a novel luminescence
camera for detection of nuclear processes. Starting from 1958, he studied plasma
and nuclear fusion
related phenomena and discovered magneto-acoustic resonance in plasma in the same year.
A serious illness took him away from science in 1972. Zavoisky died in 1976 in Moscow.
(1957) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1969), as well as two Orders of Lenin
. On 23 October 1953, he became an Associated Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
and on 26 June 1964 was elected as Academician
.
In 1977, a year after his death, his discovery of EPR was acknowledged by the international EPR society, which also established the "Zavoisky Award". In 1984, Kazan Physics Institute was named after Zavoisky.
Electron paramagnetic resonance
Electron paramagnetic resonance or electron spin resonance spectroscopyis a technique for studying chemical species that have one or more unpaired electrons, such as organic and inorganic free radicals or inorganic complexes possessing a transition metal ion...
in 1944. He likely observed nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance is a physical phenomenon in which magnetic nuclei in a magnetic field absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation...
in 1941, well before Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch was a Swiss physicist, working mainly in the U.S.-Life and work:Bloch was born in Zürich, Switzerland to Jewish parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch. He was educated there and at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, also in Zürich. Initially studying engineering he soon changed to physics...
and Edward Mills Purcell
Edward Mills Purcell
Edward Mills Purcell was an American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for his independent discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and in solids. Nuclear magnetic resonance has become widely used to study the molecular structure of pure materials and the...
, but dismissed the results as not reproducible. Zavoisky is also credited with design of luminescence
Luminescence
Luminescence is emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; it is thus a form of cold body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions, or stress on a crystal. This distinguishes luminescence from incandescence, which is light emitted by a...
camera for detection of nuclear processes in 1952 and discovery of magneto-acoustic resonance in plasma
Plasma (physics)
In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
in 1958.
Early years
Zavoisky was born in 1907 in Mogilyov-Podolsk, a town in the south of Russia. His father Konstantin Ivanovich was a military doctor and mother Elizaveta Nikolaevna was trained as a teacher. In 1910, Zavoisky family moved to KazanKazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
– a major Russian university city – for the sake of better education and well-being of their five children. There, Konstantin Ivanovich obtained a respectable job and a large apartment, which he equipped with equipment and books for home experiments with his children. Yevgeny, in particular, was keen to electromagnetism.
October revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
of 1917 brought difficult times. Konstantin Ivanovich died in 1919 from exhaustion, and the family moved to a small rural town to survive the hunger period. They returned to Kazan in 1925. In 1926, Yevgeny entered the faculty of physics at Kazan University. By that time, he was already an experienced amateur engineer who had assembled his own radio receivers and had numerous ideas of new inventions and measurements. Zavoisky established himself as a talented student and researcher. He was sent to Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
to continue his studies and after returning to Kazan had worked in the laboratory of oscillations at Kazan University. After defending his PhD in 1933, he became the laboratory head. His research directions included generation of ultrashort waves; study of their physical and chemical effects on matter, including the effect on seed germination; and investigation of superregenerative effect
Regenerative circuit
The regenerative circuit or "autodyne" allows an electronic signal to be amplified many times by the same vacuum tube or other active component such as a field effect transistor. It consists of an amplifying vacuum tube or transistor with its output connected to its input through a feedback...
. The seed germination topic was a reflection of that difficult period when scientists were required to try helping the Russian economy, which was recovering from the years of wars.
Work on resonance phenomena
Zavoisky started systematic studies on interaction of electromagnetic waves with matter in 1933. He formed a group of talented experimentalists and theoretists of various background, which included Boris Kozyrev, A. V. Nesmelov and later Semen AltshulerSemen Altshuler
Semen Alexandrovich Altshuler was a Soviet physicist known for his work in resonance spectroscopy and in particular for theoretical prediction of acoustic paramagnetic resonance in 1952.-Early years:Altshuler was born in 1911 in Vitebsk, now a city in Belarus, near the border with Russia...
. He also visited several laboratories in major Russian cities and found that the experimental techniques in this research field were undeveloped. He was particularly dissatisfied with poor detection sensitivity and spent much effort on improving it using better detectors and electronic circuitry.
Zavoisky was much interested in the pioneering results obtained by Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi
Isidor Isaac Rabi was a Galician-born American physicist and Nobel laureate recognized in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance.-Early years:...
in 1938 on interaction of molecular beams with electromagnetic waves in a static magnetic field, that is nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance is a physical phenomenon in which magnetic nuclei in a magnetic field absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation...
(NMR). Eight years later, in 1946, Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch
Felix Bloch was a Swiss physicist, working mainly in the U.S.-Life and work:Bloch was born in Zürich, Switzerland to Jewish parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch. He was educated there and at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, also in Zürich. Initially studying engineering he soon changed to physics...
and Edward Mills Purcell
Edward Mills Purcell
Edward Mills Purcell was an American physicist who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics for his independent discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance in liquids and in solids. Nuclear magnetic resonance has become widely used to study the molecular structure of pure materials and the...
refined the technique for use on liquids and solids, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in physics
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
in 1952. Zavoisky too tried to detect NMR in solids and liquids around 1940–1941. He had a sensitive enough detection system and managed to obtain the resonance signals. However, the strict requirement for the spatial homogeneity of the magnetic field were likely not met. The signals were unstable and poorly reproducible and thus were discarded. The work was interrupted by the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and had not been resumed.
Instead, starting from 1943, Zavoisky focused on electron paramagnetic resonance
Electron paramagnetic resonance
Electron paramagnetic resonance or electron spin resonance spectroscopyis a technique for studying chemical species that have one or more unpaired electrons, such as organic and inorganic free radicals or inorganic complexes possessing a transition metal ion...
(EPR), which is much less demanding for the homogeneity of magnetic field. On the other hand, it requires much more sensitive detection electronics, but Zavoisky was well prepared in this area. In particular he had replaced the calorimetric
Calorimetry
Calorimetry is the science of measuring the heat of chemical reactions or physical changes. Calorimetry is performed with a calorimeter. The word calorimetry is derived from the Latin word calor, meaning heat...
(thermal) detection of C. J. Gorter by a much more sensitive electronic technique of grid current
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
. A further improvement was addition of a small AC
Alternating current
In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....
magnetic field to the main static magnetic field. This dramatically increased the detection sensitivity and allowed easy amplification of the resonance signal and outputing it directly to an oscilloscope
Oscilloscope
An oscilloscope is a type of electronic test instrument that allows observation of constantly varying signal voltages, usually as a two-dimensional graph of one or more electrical potential differences using the vertical or 'Y' axis, plotted as a function of time,...
. In 1944, EPR signals were detected in several salts, including hydrous copper chloride
Copper(II) chloride
Copper chloride is the chemical compound with the formula CuCl2. This is a light brown solid, which slowly absorbs moisture to form a blue-green dihydrate. The copper chlorides are some of the most common copper compounds, after copper sulfate....
(CuCl2·2H2O), copper sulfate and manganese sulfate
Manganese(II) sulfate
Manganese sulfate usually refers to the inorganic compound with the formula MnSO4. This pale pink deliquescent solid is a commercially significant manganese salt. Approximately 260 thousand tonnes of manganese sulfate were produced worldwide in 2005. It is the precursor to manganese metal and...
. The results were revolutionary and were first not accepted even by the Soviet scientists (including Pyotr Kapitsa
Pyotr Kapitsa
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was a prominent Soviet/Russian physicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Kapitsa was born in the city of Kronstadt and graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He worked for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge...
). The doubts were dispersed when Zavoisky visited Moscow, assembled an EPR spectrometer from scratch and reproduced his results there. In 1945, Zavoisky defended his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
on the phenomenon of electron paramagnetic resonance.
Teaching
Zavoisky was a popular teacher who focused on demonstrations rather than theories. He himself showed various cryogenic phenomena, such as hardening and shattering of matter upon freezing. One experiment nearly resulted in his arrest by the internal police. Zavoisky demonstrated interference of polarized light in a biaxial crystalOptic axis of a crystal
The optic axis of a crystal is the direction in which a ray of transmitted light suffers no birefringence . Due to the internal structure of the crystal , light propagates along the optical axis differently than in other directions...
that resulted in an encircled swastika-like image projected onto the screen in front of a large audience. The demonstration crystals were soon confiscated and analyzed by a special commission, seeking relation between the experiment and Nazi Germany, and only a series of letters from scientists settled the matter.
Late years
In 1947, upon invitation from Igor KurchatovIgor Kurchatov
Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov , was a Soviet nuclear physicist who is widely known as the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Along with Georgy Flyorov and Andrei Sakharov, Kurchatov is widely remembered and dubbed as the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" for his directorial role in the...
, Zavoisky moved from Kazan to Moscow, to work in the institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
which later became the Institute of Atomic Energy
Kurchatov Institute
The Kurchatov Institute is Russia's leading research and development institution in the field of nuclear energy. In the Soviet Union it was known as I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy , abbreviated KIAE . It is named after Igor Kurchatov....
(IAE). He was then moved to the classified location Arzamas-16
Sarov
Sarov is a closed town in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. Until 1995 it was known as Kremlyov ., while from 1946 to 1991 it was called Arzamas-16 . The town is off limits to foreigners as it is the Russian center for nuclear research. Population: -History:The history of the town can be divided...
and participated in the Soviet atomic bomb project
Soviet atomic bomb project
The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb , was a clandestine research and development program began during and post-World War II, in the wake of the Soviet Union's discovery of the United States' nuclear project...
. Upon return to IAE, he worked on detectors of ultrafast processes and in 1952 developed a novel luminescence
Luminescence
Luminescence is emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; it is thus a form of cold body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions, or stress on a crystal. This distinguishes luminescence from incandescence, which is light emitted by a...
camera for detection of nuclear processes. Starting from 1958, he studied plasma
Plasma (physics)
In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
and nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
related phenomena and discovered magneto-acoustic resonance in plasma in the same year.
A serious illness took him away from science in 1972. Zavoisky died in 1976 in Moscow.
Awards and honors
Zavoisky was awarded the Stalin Prize (1949), the Lenin PrizeLenin Prize
The Lenin Prize was one of the most prestigious awards of the USSR, presented to individuals for accomplishments relating to science, literature, arts, architecture, and technology. It was created on June 23, 1925 and was awarded until 1934. During the period from 1935 to 1956, the Lenin Prize was...
(1957) and Hero of Socialist Labour (1969), as well as two Orders of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
. On 23 October 1953, he became an Associated Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
and on 26 June 1964 was elected as Academician
Academician
The title Academician denotes a Full Member of an art, literary, or scientific academy.In many countries, it is an honorary title. There also exists a lower-rank title, variously translated Corresponding Member or Associate Member, .-Eastern Europe and China:"Academician" may also be a functional...
.
In 1977, a year after his death, his discovery of EPR was acknowledged by the international EPR society, which also established the "Zavoisky Award". In 1984, Kazan Physics Institute was named after Zavoisky.