Vadym Yevhenovych Lashkarov
The outstanding Ukrainian physicist Vadym Yevhenovych Lashkarov was born on October 7, 1903, in Kyiv. In 1924, he graduated from the Kyiv Institute of Public Education (now Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv) and entered graduate school at the research department of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. From 1925 to 1927, he worked at the KPI, first as a lecturer and later as an associate professor.
V.E. Lashkaryov took an active part in organizing the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, where he headed the Department of X-ray Physics from 1929 to 1930.
In 1930, Academician A.F. Yoffe invited the scientist to the laboratory of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology. For five years, V.E. Lashkarev headed the X-ray department, and later the electron diffraction department. Together with V.P. Linnik, he completed a series of works on the optics of X-rays. He carried out pioneering work on determining the distribution of electron density and potential in solids and wrote the first monograph in the USSR, “Diffraction of Electrons.” For this work, he was awarded a doctorate in physics and mathematics without a public defense. Then, in 1934, V.E. Lashkarev was sent to Arkhangelsk, where he headed the physics department at the medical institute until 1939.
In 1939, Vadim Yevgenyevich returned to Kyiv and headed the semiconductor department at the Institute of Physics and, at the same time, the physics department at Kyiv University.
In 1941, the scientist began researching the closing layers of copper oxide rectifiers using a thermoprobe. He established that on both sides of the barrier layer, located parallel to the copper-copper oxide boundary, the current carriers have opposite signs. This phenomenon was later named the p-n junction. V.E. Lashkarev, together with a group of American scientists, should have received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956 for the discovery of the transistor effect.
In 1945, V.E. Lashkarev was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.
In the early 1950s, under his leadership, the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR organized the production of point-contact transistors. In 1960, the Institute of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was opened, and Vadym Yevgenyevich was appointed its director.
V.E. Lashkaryov's main scientific works are devoted to the study of electron diffraction and semiconductor physics. He is also known for his works on the mechanism of photoelectric forces in semiconductors, photoconductivity, bipolar conductivity, and electron levels on semiconductor surfaces.
Vadym Yevgenovych paid great attention to the training of scientific personnel. At the KDU Department of Physics, he introduced the specialization “semiconductor physics” and later created the first department of semiconductors. Under his direct guidance and consultation, a significant number of doctoral and candidate dissertations were defended.
V.E. Lashkarev died on December 1, 1974. In 2002, the Institute of Semiconductors of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine was named after V.E. Lashkarev.