The physicist who built an atomic accelerator amid wartime siege
“We flew to Khvoynaya, waited for darkness, then flew low over Lake Ladoga.”
Leonid Nemenov was a Soviet physicist who worked on nuclear physics and accelerator technology. At Kurchatov’s direction, he entered besieged Leningrad to recover vital parts of the Fiztekh cyclotron and led construction of the cyclotron brought into operation at Laboratory No. 2 in 1944. The machine provided the necessary basis for obtaining the first trace quantities of plutonium for chemical analysis.
Career Timeline
- 1929Graduated from Leningrad State University
- 1929–1939Researcher at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute
- 1939–1944Worked on designing and building a large cyclotron
- 1943–1944Led construction of the Laboratory No. 2 cyclotron
- 1949Received a Doctor of Technical Sciences degree
- 1962Became a professor and full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR
- 1968–1980Head of the All-Union Research Institute of Physico-Technical and Radio-Technical Accelerator Measurements
- 1980Died in Moscow