Academician Gennady A. Mesyats

Academician Gennady A. Mesyats

Gennady Andreevich Mesyats was born in Kemerovo, Siberia, in 1936.  In 1958, he graduated with honors from Tomsk Polytechnic Institute (TPI). He received a candidate’s degree in engineering (1961) and doctor’s degree in engineering (1966) and became Professor (1972), Corresponding Member of the USSR AS (1979), and Full Member of the USSR AS (1984).

From 1961 to 1966 he worked as a senior researcher and from 1966 to 1969 as the head of a group engaged in electronics and automatics at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of TPI.

During the period from 1969 to 1977 he was Deputy Director for Research of the Institute of Atmospheric Optics of the USSR Academy of Sciences Siberian Division (USSR AS SD). In 1977, he founded the Institute of High Current Electronics of the USSR AS SD and became Director of the Institute. In 1986, G. A. Mesyats, together with a team of the leading researchers of the Institute, went to Sverdlovsk (now Ekaterinburg) where he became Director of the Institute of Electrophysics of the Ural Science Center that was set up on his initiative.  

In 1987 G. A. Mesyats initiated the founding of the Ural Division of the USSR AS that brought in association almost all institutions of the Academy of Sciences in the Ural region of Russia. G. A. Mesyats was President of the Division up to 1998. From 1987 to 1991 he served as Vice President of the USSR AS and since 1991 he has been Vice President of Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2002, G. A. Mesyats has also been Research Supervisor of the Institute of High Current Electronics of the RUS SD and Institute of Electrophysics of the RAS UD. Since 2004, he has been Director of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the RAS.

In addition to his research and managerial activities at the Russian Academy of Sciences, G. A. Mesyats is actively engaged in public work of national value. Since 1992, he has been President of The Demidov Foundation for Research and of The Demidov Prize that were established on his initiative and with his direct participation. From 1998 to 2005, G. A. Mesyats headed the State Supreme Certification Commission and from 1993 to 2008 the Scientific Council of the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

 G. A. Mesyats is actively involved in educational work. He supervised the studies of about 100 candidates of science and more than 20 doctors of science; 21 of his followers were awarded with the State Prize of the Russian Federation. Among his disciples there are three Full Members and five Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences.  He lectured as Professor at leading higher education institutions, such as the Institute of Automated Control Systems and Radioelectronics (Tomsk, 1970–1978), Tomsk State University (founder and head of the plasma physics faculty, 1978–1984), Ural Polytechnic Institute (founder and head of the faculty of electrophysics, Ekaterinburg, 1986–1990). Since 1987, Professor Mesyats has been the head of the faculty of electrophysics (founded by him) at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

He authored and co-authored over 600 scientific papers and 20 monograps (the list of principal publications is appended).

Academician G. A. Mesyats is an originator of high-power pulsed electronics, a new field in physics. Impetus to this was given by the publication of his book “Technique of the Formation of Nanosecond High-Voltage Pulses” (Atomizdat, 1963), a pioneering monograph in this field. He discovered the phenomenon of explosive electron emission that makes it possible to produce pulsed electron currents of almost infinite magnitude. He pioneered the initiation of volumetric discharges in gases at high pressures (up to tens of atmospheres and higher) by injecting intense electron beams into the gas. This gave rise to new types of high-power gas lasers. G. A. Mesyats also discovered the phenomenon of current cutoff in silicon semiconductors at current densities reaching 104 A/cm2 within 10–9 s cutoff time (SOS effect). This made it possible to create fully-solid-state nanosecond pulse generators capable of producing pulsed voltages up to 106 V at a pulse repetition rate up to hundreds of hertz.

G. A. Mesyats proposed several types of plasma opening switch (POS) for pulsed power generators. Of greatest interest of them are POS’s using micrometer-sized wires and POS’s which transform microsecond pulse energy into the energy of nanosecond pulses. He developed and designed a series of nanosecond triggered multielectrode spark gaps operating at a voltage of 104–106 V with 10–9 s jitter and injection thyratrons.

Using the developed techniques and equipment for the production of nanosecond high-power pulses, G. A. Mesyats performed a number of fundamental studies in the physics of pulsed discharges in vacuum and in gases. It turned out that explosive electron emission is of primary importance in a vacuum discharge. The discharge delay time is determined by the time to the explosion of microprotrusions of the cathode surface by field emission current, and the spark current is completely determined by the explosive electron emission current. Subsequent investigations of discharges sent G. A. Mesyats to revise radically the notions about the mechanism of a vacuum arc. It turned out that the arc current consists of individual electron bunches, which were called ectons. The ecton theory of vacuum sparks made it possible to explain many previously not comprehended facts observed in experiments on vacuum arcs, such as anomalous ions, the backward motion of cathode spots, the cathode spot structure, etc.

Academician Mesyats offered a new explanation of the nanosecond pulsed discharge in a gas. First, he has shown that the discharge initiation depends on the number of initiating electrons, that is, the initiation can be multielectron as well as single-electron, and this was contradictory to the streamer discharge theory where it was assumed that a single electron at the cathode suffices to initiate a discharge. It turned out that no streamer occurs at all on the nanosecond and subnanosecond scales, and a discharge develops due to a great number of electron avalanches. This type of discharge turned out to be of prime utility in various types of high-pressure lasers that substantially (by orders of magnitude) surpass glow-discharge lasers in specific power.

Considerable efforts were made by G. A. Mesyats on the development of the theory and on the realization of nanosecond pulsed electron accelerators capable of producing electron beams of energy 105–5·106 eV with a pulse duration of 10–10–10–8 s. These accelerators gave rise to relativistic microwave electronics, a new area of microwave electronics. For instance, the Gamma accelerator is capable of producing the world’s record pulsed microwave power of 1.5·1010 W at a wavelength of 3 cm and a pulse duration of 10–7 s.

G. A. Mesyats is an originator of a new area in experimental physics – nanosecond electronics and pulse power. Owing to advances in this area, he obtained new fundamental results in radiation solid-state physics, in physics of surface, in gas spectroscopy, in physics of runaway electrons in gases, etc.

Academician Mesyats was awarded with many national and foreign awards. He is a laureate of the State Prizes of the USSR (1978) and Russian Federation (1998), a winner of the USSR Government Prize (1990) and Russian Federation Government Prize (2003), of The Demidov Prize (2002), of The Global Energy international prize (2003), of the international W. Dyke Award (1990) and E. Marx Award (1991). He was awarded with The A. G. Stoletov Prize (1996), The N. N. Moiseev Gold Medal (2002), The S. V. Vonsovsky Gold Medal (2004), and The M. A. Lavrent’ev Gold Medal (2005).

G. A. Mesyats was also awarded with The Order of Lenin (1986), The Order of a Red Banner of Labor (1971), The Order of Honor (1981), Orders of Service to the Motherland of Fourth Class (1996), Third Class (1999), and Second Class (2006), and also with a number of medals of the USSR and Russian Federation. He is a freeman of Tomsk region and of the city Ekaterinburg. He was also honored with The National Order of the Legion of Honor (France).

G. A. Mesyats is a member of many international scientific societies and journal editorial boards, and Honorary Professor of a number of world’s and Russian universities.

 

Principal publications

 

  1. Monographs
  1. G. A. Mesyats and D. I. Proskurovsky, Pulsed Electrical Discharge in Vacuum, Berlin–Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag (1989).
  2. Yu. D. Korolev and G. A. Mesyats, Physics of Pulsed Breakdown in Gases, Moscow: Nauka (1990).  
  3. G. A. Mesyats, V. V. Osipov, and V. F. Tarasenko, Pulsed Gas Lasers, Bellingham: SPIE Press (1995).
  4. G. A. Mesyats. Cathode Phenomena in a Vacuum Discharge: the Breakdown, the Spark, and the Arc: Moscow, Nauka (2000).
  5. G. A. Mesyats, Pulsed Power, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum (2004).
  1. Reviews
  1. G. A. Mesyats, Yu. I. Bychkov, and V. V. Kremnev,  Pulsed nanosecond electric discharges in gases, Sov. Phys. Usp., 1972, vol. 15, p. 282.
  2. G. A. Mesyats, S. P. Bugaev, E. A. Litvinov, et al., Explosive emission of electrons, Ibid., 1975, vol. 18, p. 51.
  3. Yu. I. Bychkov, Yu. D. Korolev, and G. A. Mesyats, Pulse discharges in gases under conditions of strong ionization by electrons, Ibid., 1978, vol. 21, p. 944.
  4. E. A. Litvinov, G. A. Mesyats, and D. I. Proskurovskii, Field emission and explosive electron emission processes in vacuum discharges, Ibid.,1983, vol. 26, p. 138.
  5. G. A. Mesyats and Yu. D. Korolev, High-pressure volume discharges in gas lasers, Ibid., 1986, vol. 29, p. 57.
  6. G. A. Mesyats, Ecton or electron avalanche from metal, Ibid., 1995, vol. 38, p. 567.
  7. G. A. Mesyats and S. A. Barengol’ts, Mechanism of anomalous ion generation in vacuum arcs, Ibid., 2002, vol. 45, 1001.
  8. G. A. Mesyats and M. I. Yalandin, High-power picosecond electronics, Ibid.,  2005, vol. 48, p. 211.
  9. I. V. Grekhov and G. A. Mesyats, Nanosecond semiconductor diodes for pulsed power switching, Ibid., 2005, vol. 48, p. 703.
  10. G. A. Mesyats, Similarity laws for pulsed gas discharges, Ibid., 2006, vol. 49, p. 1045.
  11. G. A. Mesyats, Electron emission from ferroelectric plasma cathodes, Ibid., 2008, vol. 51, p. 79.
  1. Papers
  1. On the increase of spark current during pulse breakdown of air gaps in nanosecond time range, in: VIE Intern. Conf. on Phenomena in Ionized Gases (ICPIG), Vienna, Austria, Aug. 27 – Sept. 2, 1967: Contr. pap. Vienna, 1967. P. 210. Co-auth.: J. I. Bichkov and A. M. Iskol'dskij.
  2. Pulsed Electrical Discharge in Vacuum, Le Vide, 1969, vol. 24, No. 143, pp. 282–286.
  3. Investigation of development of discharge in nanosecond range under atmospheric conditions, in: Proc. X ICPIG, Oxford, England, Sept. 13–18, 1971: Contr. pap. Oxford, 1971, Pt. 1, pp. 168. Co-auth.: Ju. I. Bichkov, P. A. Gavrilyuk, and Yu. D. Korolev.
  4. The role of fast processes in vacuum breakdown, Ibid., Pt. 2, pp. 333–357.
  5. Generation of high-power subnanosecond electron beams in diode with explosive emission, Ibid., pp. 387–390. Co-auth.: B. M. Kovalchuk and V. G. Shpack.
  6. On effects resulting in appearance of new emission centers at explosive electron emission, in: Proc. VIII ISDEIV, Albu­querque, 1978, p. (C4)l–8.  Co-auth.:  D. I. Proskourovsky and V. F. Puchkarev.
  7. Explosive processes on the cathode in a vacuum discharge, IEEE Trans. Electr. Insul., 1983, vol. EI-18, No. 3, pp. 218–225.
  8. Generation and amplification of microwave radiation with the use of high-current small-sized accelerators, in: Proc. VI Intern. Conf. on High-Power Particle Beams, Cobe, 1986, pp. 552–555. Co-authored.
  9. Use of a plasma erosion switch for shortening high power, microse­cond impulses, in: Proc. Megagauss Technology and Pulsed Power Appli­cations: PV Intern, Conf. on Megagauss Magnetic Field Generation and Related Topics, July 14–17, 1986, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. N.Y.; London, 1987, pp. 489–493.
  10. Pulsed electrical discharge in vacuum at cryogenic electrode temperatures, in: Proc. XIII ISSDEIV, Paris, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 3–12.
  11. The investigation of microsecond plasma opening switch modifica­tions on the GIT-4 generator, in: Proc. Intern. Workshop on Physics and Technique of High Power Opening Switches, Novosibirsk, 1989, pp. 113–125. Co-authored.
  12. Extremzustande des Plasmas, Phys. Bl., 1990, Bd. 46, N. 10, S. 383–388. Co-auth.: V. E. Fortov.
  13. Nanosecond radar system based on repetitive pulsed relativistic elec­tron beams, in: Proc. IX Intern. Conf. on High-Power Particle Beams, Washington, 1992, vol. 1, pp. 195–202. Co-auth.: B. V. Bunkin, A. V. Gaponov-Grekhov, A. S. Elchaninov, F. Ya. Zagulov, S. D. Korovin, M. L. Osipov, E. A. Otlivanchik, M. I. Petelin, A. M. Prokhorov, V. V. Rostov, A. P. Saraev, I. P. Sisakyan, A. V. Smorgonsky, and V. A. Suvorov.
  14. Theoretical model of the SOS-effect, Ibid., 1996, vol. 2, pp.1241–1244.  
  15. Repetitive nanosecond all-solid-state pulsers based on SOS-diodes, Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 992–998. Co-auth.: S. K. Lyubutin, S. N. Rukin, and B. G. Slovikovskii.
  16. Role of electron clusters – ectons – in the breakdown of solid dielectrics, Phys. Plasmas, 1998, vol. 5, No. 12, pp. 4484–4487. Co-auth.: I. V. Lisitsyn and H. Akiyama.