ACADEMICIAN
VLADIMIR DMITRIEVICH KUZNETSOV

Proceedings of the Tomsk Order of the Red Banner of Labor Polytechnic Institute named after S. M. Kirov

Vol. 140
1965

FOUNDER OF THE SIBERIAN SCHOOL OF SOLID-STATE PHYSICS

(In memory of Academician V. D. Kuznetsov)

A. A. VOROB'EV, V. A. SOKOLOV

On October 13, 1963, in the 77th year of his life, the honored figure of science, Hero of Socialist Labor, full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, professor of Tomsk University Vladimir Dmitrievich Kuznetsov passed away.

An outstanding scientist, author of a unique five-volume work on solid-state physics, well known both in our country and abroad, Vladimir Dmitrievich is, moreover, especially dear to us as the founder of the first large scientific school in Siberia and as an enthusiast in the cause of developing higher scientific and technical education on the periphery of the country.

Having graduated in 1910 from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Petersburg (now Leningrad) University, V. D. Kuznetsov in 1911 went to Tomsk, where he began scientific and pedagogical work at the Department of Physics of Siberia’s first Higher Technical School—the Tomsk Technological (now Polytechnic) Institute. Soon he took an active part in the organization and work of the Siberian Higher Women’s Courses—at that time only the second higher state women’s educational institution in Russia, created in Tomsk thanks to the efforts of the country’s progressive public several years before the Great October Socialist Revolution, which once and for all resolved the long-matured question of equal rights for women in Russia.

Thanks to the Siberian Women’s Courses, Tomsk became, as it were, a traditional place for training highly qualified scientific personnel from among women. It was precisely at the Women’s Courses, and later within the walls of Tomsk University, that an entire cohort of talented women physicists, doctors of physico-mathematical sciences, grew up and were educated. These are Professors M. A. Bolshanina, V. M. Kudryavtseva, N. A. Prilezhaeva, F. I. Vergunas, E. K. Zavadovskaya. Moreover, almost all of them are direct pupils of V. D. Kuznetsov.

In 1917, at Tomsk University, which then consisted of the medical and law faculties, a Faculty of Physics and Mathematics was opened; its subsequent activity and development proved inseparably connected with the name of V. D. Kuznetsov, who first became a privat-docent of the faculty, and from 1920 onward—a full professor.

With the establishment of Soviet power in Siberia, V. D. Kuznetsov immediately joined that progressive part of the professors and teachers which, without hesitation, took the side of the Soviets and, overcoming the resistance of reaction, waged a struggle for the organization and development of higher education under the new conditions of the newly arisen Soviet republic. During this period Professor V. D. Kuznetsov held at the university, one after another, responsible posts: member of the board of Tomsk Technological University, deputy rector, acting rector, dean of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, where he organized new physics departments and specialties, teaching laboratories, classrooms, and workshops, striving with all his strength to raise as high as possible the level of education in physics and mathematics at Tomsk University. Along with organizing and developing education and enlightenment in Siberia, V. D. Kuznetsov was already at that time making great efforts toward the broad organization of scientific research and the creation of a major Siberian school of physicists.

The thunder of the Civil War had hardly died away when the founder of the Soviet state, V. I. Lenin, set the task of the earliest possible creation of scientific-research centers not only in Moscow and Petrograd, but also on the periphery of the country. An active role in solving this most important Leninist task under the conditions of remote Siberia was played by V. D. Kuznetsov.

In 1923 he took part in the creation of the Scientific-Research Institute of Applied Physics at the Tomsk Technological Institute.

This research institute, which at first existed as part of a comparatively small group, chiefly of nonstaff collaborators, on the initiative of V. D. Kuznetsov and with the active support of the Soviet government and of well-known scientists of the country (Academician A. F. Ioffe and others), was transformed in 1928 into the first major scientific-research institution in Siberia—the Siberian Physico-Technical Institute (SFTI) at Tomsk University. V. D. Kuznetsov took the most ardent part in organizing the institute and was its first director. Subsequently heading this institute for many years, he succeeded in raising it to the level of the best institutes of all-Union significance.

In the very first years of the existence of the Siberian Physico-Technical Institute, scientific research in solid-state physics, electro- and radio-physics, optics, and spectroscopy was widely developed there.

While leading and directing the work of SFTI, V. D. Kuznetsov did not diminish but, on the contrary, increased his direct participation in scientific investigations in the field he loved—solid-state physics, an interest in which had arisen in him while still within the walls of the Tomsk Technological Institute under the influence of Professor B. P. Weinberg, who then headed the department of physics there. However, already in the 1920s V. D. Kuznetsov began to develop his own directions in solid-state physics, gathering around himself capable young people, and soon, through the execution of a whole series of fundamental and subtle experiments, won universal recognition as an outstanding scientist.

Surface energy and hardness, plasticity and strength, crystallization and recrystallization, cutting of metals, friction and wear of metals—these are the principal directions of solid-state physics that owe their development to V. D. Kuznetsov.

Works on the study of the surface energy of crystals occupy a significant place in V. D. Kuznetsov’s research and may be regarded as classics. The data he experimentally found on the absolute-

According to him, the values of surface energies and their ratios for different crystal faces are in good agreement with theory, and the cleavage method he proposed for determining the absolute values of the surface energy of crystals has become firmly established in the technique and methodology of scientific experiment. The grinding method he developed for determining the relative value of the surface energies of ionic crystals likewise gained recognition; the application of this method played a major role in the study of abrasive-wear processes in brittle materials. The theory of this problem relates the grinding parameters to the surface energy of the crystal and, for ionic crystals, agrees well with experiment.

V. D. Kuznetsov very successfully related the surface energy of crystals to their hardness and, on this basis, provided a brilliant analysis of the previously unclear concept of hardness, showing that it can be characterized by the surface energy of crystals, since the latter is connected with strength. The pendulum sclerometer he developed for determining hardness is still widely used in Soviet and foreign laboratories. Subsequently he theoretically developed and proposed for the same purposes another method—the drilling method—which also proved itself well in practice.

The cycle of V. D. Kuznetsov’s works on plasticity is of great importance for solving problems connected with the mechanical working of solids. From this cycle of works, one should especially note the studies on the internal friction of solids, on the influence of deformation rate on the mechanical properties of metals, and also on the development of methods for monitoring the quality of metals. This also includes studies of the brittleness of steel at low temperatures, prompted by urgent practical needs (cases of rail breakage in severe frosts, failures of side frames, tires, and axles of railway-car wheels). In works by V. D. Kuznetsov carried out jointly with A. N. Dobrovidov, it was established that, in order to shift the critical region of brittleness toward low temperatures, it is necessary to heat-treat steel to sorbite. The circle of V. D. Kuznetsov’s investigations on plasticity and strength also includes practically important works on studying the process of armor penetration, which he carried out during the years of the Great Patriotic War (the results of the investigations were summarized in his book The Physics of Armor Penetration).

Among V. D. Kuznetsov’s works on crystallization, especially important are the works on clarifying the conditions for the formation of columnar crystals, undesirable in metallurgical practice and in various cases of metal casting. These investigations made it possible to develop methods for eliminating columnar crystallization. Another series of V. D. Kuznetsov’s works on crystallization concerns the influence of impurities on the number of crystallization centers, the rate of their growth, and the external faceting of crystals. He also carried out investigations on recrystallization, in which the role of twins and of the boundaries between twinned and untwinned crystals in the processes of formation of crystallization centers and their subsequent growth was clarified.

The next large group of V. D. Kuznetsov’s works belongs to the field of metal cutting, which he raised to a high theoretical level, directing it along new, previously unexplored paths. Here one should especially note a series of studies aimed at realizing V. D. Kuznetsov’s innovative idea of ultra-high-speed cutting of metals. The results of these studies not only confirmed this revolutionary idea in scientific and technical terms, but also made it possible to intro-

put it into practice. At the present time, high-speed cutting of metals with a tool having a negative rake angle is widely used in factories of the Soviet Union and yields great economic benefit. Among V. D. Kuznetsov’s other works on the problem of cutting, it is necessary to note studies of chip-formation processes, of the influence of various factors on changes in the cutting constants, and of the search for a connection between cutting and the plastic compression of metals.

In recent years V. D. Kuznetsov worked on questions of the friction and wear of metals. Under his direction a number of important works were carried out, aimed at elucidating the physical processes occurring during friction with and without lubrication. A number of previously unclear dependences of the coefficient of friction and wear on speed, pressure, and temperature were explained on the basis of the bold idea he advanced concerning the influence of buildups on friction parameters.

Such, in brief, are the main results of the scientific research activity of V. D. Kuznetsov, which is connected chiefly with the study of the mechanical properties of solids and with metal physics. This direction is now continuing to develop successfully at SFTI through the efforts of V. D. Kuznetsov’s pupils, Professors M. A. Bolshanina, K. V. Savitsky, V. N. Kashcheev, and others. It must be noted, however, that V. D. Kuznetsov also laid the foundation in Tomsk for the development of other branches of solid-state physics. Thus, at the beginning of his scientific activity he personally dealt with questions of the electrical, as well as the optical, properties of crystals. And although he himself subsequently withdrew from these directions, he nevertheless strove in every way to develop them in the institute he headed. With V. D. Kuznetsov’s assistance, at SFTI, under the direction of Professor P. S. Tartakovsky, who had been invited from Leningrad, the physics of dielectrics began to develop intensively (the internal photoeffect in dielectrics, the electrical strength of insulators, etc.). The physics of dielectrics then received further development at the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute under the direction of Professor A. A. Vorob’ev, a pupil of P. S. Tartakovsky. The studies on the luminescence of crystals begun by V. D. Kuznetsov were later continued and developed at SFTI by Professors V. M. Kudryavtseva and F. I. Vergunas.

In the last years of his life V. D. Kuznetsov gave every assistance to the establishment of research in a new area of solid-state physics—the physics of semiconductors—which is now developing at SFTI under the direction of Professor V. A. Presnov and others.

All this shows that V. D. Kuznetsov laid in Tomsk the foundation for the broad and many-sided development of solid-state physics.

In conclusion it is necessary to note the extensive scientific and literary work of V. D. Kuznetsov, which he carried on continuously throughout his life, and as a result of which there was created a work unprecedented in world science—the monograph Physics of the Solid State, consisting of five volumes with a total size of more than 320 printed sheets (for the second volume of this monograph V. D. Kuznetsov was awarded the State Prize in 1944). In addition, he wrote the books Crystals and Crystallization, Surface Energy of Solids, Physics of Armor Penetration, Buildups in Cutting and Friction, and also produced a number of textbooks on physics of an educational and pedagogical character. On the basis of the results of theoretical and experimental studies he published about 200 articles in scientific periodical literature.

In 1934 Professor V. D. Kuznetsov was awarded the academic degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences without defending a dissertation

In the same year the All-Russian Central Executive Committee conferred on him the title of Honored Worker of Science. In 1946 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and in 1958 he became a full member.

To that great organizational work of V. D. Kuznetsov for the development of science and education in Siberia, which has already been described above, it is also necessary to add that he was one of the initiators of the creation of the West Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Novosibirsk, rendered great assistance in its organization, and took a direct part in the work of its first scientific institutions, which later became the basis for the creation of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, with its numerous institutes and laboratories.

The varied research, pedagogical, and scientific-organizational activity of V. D. Kuznetsov did not prevent him from taking an active part in public life. For many years he was a deputy of the City Soviet, chairman of the Tomsk Regional Committee for the Defense of Peace, and from 1947 to 1951 a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. During the years of the Great Patriotic War he was the initiator and one of the organizers of the Tomsk Committee of Scientists for rendering assistance to industry, transport, and agriculture.

The Party and the Soviet government highly appreciated the many years of highly fruitful scientific and public activity of Vladimir Dmitrievich Kuznetsov, awarding him three Orders of Lenin and conferring on him the high and honorable title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

The memory of this great toiler of science will long remain in the hearts of those who knew him and of those who have made use of, or will make use of, his outstanding works.