TOMSK, Sep 2 – RIA Tomsk. TPU Faculty of Physics and Technology (TPU FPT) celebrates its 70th anniversary. During this time, faculty graduated more than 12 thousand specialists, scientific and educational center for nuclear, radiation and plasma technologies was formed in Tomsk. The most famous developments of Tomsk physicists-technicians are in the material of RIA Tomsk.
The first electron accelerator in the USSR
The first betatron or electron accelerator in the USSR was created at Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) in the middle of the twentieth century.
It was from its creation that a new scientific direction began to develop at TPU for the development and manufacture of a whole park of unique accelerating equipment, including the SIRIUS synchrotron (Siberian resonant pulse accelerator) - an electron accelerator with an energy of 1.5 GeV (1 billion electron volts).
Nuclear fuel cycle technologies
A number of technologies used in the production of nuclear fuel were developed as a result of research by the FPT TPU employees who studied the physical and technical foundations of the production of fluoride compounds of uranium and elemental fluorine.
For example, there appeared devices with a countercurrent gas suspension for the production of uranium hexafluoride, high-intensity fluoride electrolyzers with forced circulation of the electrolyte for the production of elemental fluorine, and so on.
For these studies, the research team of the university, headed by Professor Nikolai Kurin, received the USSR State Prize.
Small doses effects
The effect of small doses, or the phenomenon of ordering the structure of crystals by small doses, and the accumulating properties of hydrogen in a solid body, were also discovered for the first time by Tomsk polytechnics working under the guidance of Professor Ivan Chernov.
During the research, scientists developed a set of nuclear physics methods that made it possible to obtain fundamentally new information about the properties of single crystals. Thus, a new effect was discovered - the ordering of the structure of defective crystals by ionizing radiation, which, in addition to scientific, is of great practical interest.
Molybdenum-99 for medicine
At the TPU Nuclear Research Reactor (IRT-T), a technology for the production of molybdenum-99 (99Мо) from enriched molybdenum-98 by means of its production by the reaction of radiation capture was invented. It is unique in that its use does not generate a large amount of radioactive waste and, as a result, there is no need to dispose of it, as is presented in the world experience.
Thanks to this development physicists-technicians of TPU began to produce generators of radiopharmaceuticals used in medicine for the diagnosis of cardiological, oncological, endocrinological and other diseases.
And for space ...
In addition, Tomsk polytechnics also developed highly efficient magnetron sources of low-temperature plasma, which later served as the basis for the creation of plasma installations capable of treating the surface of solids and improving their physical properties.
Plasma installations for the production of optical solar reflectors for artificial Earth satellites, equipment for deposition of transparent electrically conductive coatings on the surface of polymer films, which are used as material for spacecraft housings, as well as installations for the production of space-based antenna reflectors are currently used at Roscosmos enterprises.
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In addition to scientific developments, TPU physicists and technicians played an important role in the development of educational activities. For example, the educational and research work of students originates precisely at the FPT TPU - here it began to be practiced back in 1956. And since 1967, this format has spread to all universities throughout the country.
Several years ago, on the basis of the TPU School of Nuclear Science & Engineering (the modern name of the Faculty of Physics and Technology), a unified training system was created for the partner countries of the Rosatom state corporation. Graduates of Tomsk Polytechnic University are currently working at nuclear facilities in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Zambia, Bolivia and other countries.