The National Science Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT) (Ukrainian: Національний науковий центр «Харківський фізико-технічний інститут»), formerly the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute (UPTI) is the oldest and largest physical science research centre in Ukraine. Today it is known as a science center as it consists of several institutes that are part of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology science complex.
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History
The institute was founded on 30 October 1928, by the Government of Soviet Ukraine on an initiative of Abram Ioffe on the northern outskirts of Kharkiv (in khutir Piatykhatky) as the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology for the purpose of research on nuclear physics and condensed matter physics.
From the moment of its creation, the institute was run by the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry.
On 10 October 1932 the first experiments in nuclear fission in the Soviet Union were conducted here. The Soviet nuclear physicists Anton Valter, Georgiy Latyshev, Cyril Sinelnikov, and Aleksandr Leipunskii used a lithium atom nucleus. Later the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was able to obtain liquid hydrogen and helium. They also constructed the first triple coordinate radar station, and the institute became a pioneer of the Soviet high vacuum engineering which was developed into an industrial vacuum metallurgy.
During Stalin's Great Terror in 1938, the institute suffered the so-called UPTI Affair: three leading physicists of the Kharkiv Institute (Lev Landau, Yuri Rumer and Moisey Korets) were arrested by the Soviet secret police.
The Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was the "Laboratory no. 1" for nuclear physics, and was responsible for the first conceptual development of a nuclear bomb in the USSR.
A center for research into the stellarator device type for fusion energy production was created by Cyril Sinelnikov in 1956 with the support of Igor Kurchatov. It was the site of the world's first torsatron-type stellarator, Saturn-1. Today it is the site of the larger Uragan-2M torsatron experiment.
It was damaged by shelling during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, resulting in heavy damage to the Neutron Source nuclear facility. It is guarded by the 4th State Objects Protection Regiment.
Directors
1929–1933: Ivan Obreimov
1933–1934: Aleksandr Leipunskii
1934–1936: Semyon Davidovich
1936–1938: Aleksandr Leipunskii
1938–1941: Aleksandr Shpetny
1944–1965: Cyril Sinelnikov
1965–1980: Victor Ivanov
1980–1996: Viktor Zelensky
1996–2004: Vladimir Lapshin
2004–2017: Ivan Neklyudov
2017–2024: Nikolay Shulga
Important institutes
Science and education institutions in Pyatykhatky.
Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology
The Lev Shubnikov Low Temperature Laboratory at the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology was founded in 1931. Lev Shubnikov was a head of the cryogenic laboratory at the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute in 1931–1937. In 1935, Rjabinin, Schubnikow experimentally discovered the Type-II superconductors at the cryogenic laboratory at the institute.
Institute of condensed matter physics, materials studies and technology
Plasma physics institute, Institute of high energy and nuclear physics
Institute of plasma electronics and new methods of acceleration
Akhiezer Institute of theoretical physics
Other institutes
Kharkiv University faculty of physics and technology, located nearby.
Notable alumni
Aleksander Akhiezer
Naum Akhiezer
Semion Braude
Dmitri Ivanenko
Fritz Houtermans
Arnold Kosevich
Eduard Kuraev
Igor Kurchatov
Lev Landau
Oleg Lavrentiev
Aleksandr Leipunskii
Ilya Lifshitz
Evgeny Lifshitz
Boris Podolsky
Isaak Pomeranchuk
Antonina Prikhot'ko
Lev Shubnikov
Cyril Sinelnikov
László Tisza