Laser Physicist from Siberia N.Vinokurov receives the State Award
Two out of three state awards in 2009 were awarded to the RAS Siberian branch scientists: Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Nikolay Vinokurov who is a head of the laboratory at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics of the RAS Siberian branch; and Academician Valentin Parmon who is a director of the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the laser invention. I shall remind you that our scientists – academicians Basov and Prokhorov’s work culminated in the Nobel Prize as far as in 1964. Today, and it is especially pleasant to notice, we still keep our leadership in this sphere, said President Medvedev handing the award to Mr.Vinokurov.
The Institute of nuclear physics of the RAS Siberian branch has been engaged in free electron lasers (FEL) for more than 30 years.
After that in the USA there was the first FEL assembled in 1976, the interest in these devices has sharply increased in the USA, as unlike usual lasers, FELs can change length of the wave and be tuned to resonant frequencies, that promotes ample opportunities for these lasers to be applied in the fields of chemistry, biology, solid state physics. The free electron laser is a complicated source of radiation with a so-called electron-beam gun involved.
ÃBiologists managed to get the most interesting results using terahertz radiation, the Institute of Cytology and Genetics together with Institute of Chemical Dynamics and Combustion developed a unique method of soft ablation allowing "evaporating" to the atmosphere separate molecules of DNA and proteins without destroying them.
During the last 20 years, six Nobel Prizes – four in the field of biology, two in the field of chemistry – have been given for research involving megascience installations in particular with synchrotron radiation sources (SR).
Now the institute is working over the global project of creation of the SR source of fourth generation MARS for the Kurchatovsky Institute.
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