Lev Shubnikov
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and USSR.
Shubnikov was born into the family of a Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
accountant. After graduating from a gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
he entered Leningrad University
Saint Petersburg State University
Saint Petersburg State University is a Russian federal state-owned higher education institution based in Saint Petersburg and one of the oldest and largest universities in Russia....
. This was the first year of the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
and he was the only student of that year attending the physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
department. While yachting in the Gulf of Finland
Gulf of Finland
The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...
in 1921, he accidentally sailed from Saint Petersburg to Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, was sent to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and could not return to Russia until 1922. He then continued his education in the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute, graduating in 1926. During his university training he worked with Ivan Obreimov, developing a new method for growing monocrystals of metals.
In 1926, at the recommendation of Abram Ioffe
Abram Ioffe
Abram Fedorovich Ioffe was a prominent Russian/Soviet physicist. He received the Stalin Prize , the Lenin Prize , and the Hero of Socialist Labor . Ioffe was an expert in electromagnetism, radiology, crystals, high-impact physics, thermoelectricity and photoelectricity...
, he was sent to the Leiden cryogenic laboratory of Wander Johannes de Haas
Wander Johannes de Haas
Wander Johannes de Haas was a Dutch physicist and mathematician. He is best known for the Shubnikov–de Haas effect, the de Haas–van Alphen effect and the Einstein–de Haas effect.-Personal life:...
in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
; he worked there until 1930. Shubnikov studied bismuth
Bismuth
Bismuth is a chemical element with symbol Bi and atomic number 83. Bismuth, a trivalent poor metal, chemically resembles arsenic and antimony. Elemental bismuth may occur naturally uncombined, although its sulfide and oxide form important commercial ores. The free element is 86% as dense as lead...
crystals with low impurity concentrations, and in cooperation with Wander Johannes de Haas he discovered magnetoresistance
Magnetoresistance
Magnetoresistance is the property of a material to change the value of its electrical resistance when an external magnetic field is applied to it. The effect was first discovered by William Thomson in 1856, but he was unable to lower the electrical resistance of anything by more than 5%. This...
oscillations at low temperatures in magnetic field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
s (the Shubnikov-De Haas effect
Shubnikov-De Haas effect
An oscillation in the conductivity of a material that occurs at low temperatures in the presence of very intense magnetic fields, the Shubnikov–de Haas effect is a macroscopic manifestation of the inherent quantum mechanical nature of matter...
). The importance of this effect for condensed state physics became completely clear only much later. Today this effect is one of the principal instruments used in studying the quantum electron properties of solids.
In 1930 Shubnikov returned to Kharkov and established there the first Soviet cryogenic laboratory.
He also discovered the antiferromagnetism
Antiferromagnetism
In materials that exhibit antiferromagnetism, the magnetic moments of atoms or molecules, usuallyrelated to the spins of electrons, align in a regular pattern with neighboring spins pointing in opposite directions. This is, like ferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism, a manifestation of ordered magnetism...
(in 1935) and paramagnetism
Paramagnetism
Paramagnetism is a form of magnetism whereby the paramagnetic material is only attracted when in the presence of an externally applied magnetic field. In contrast with this, diamagnetic materials are repulsive when placed in a magnetic field...
(in 1936, together with Boris Lazarev) of solid
Solid
Solid is one of the three classical states of matter . It is characterized by structural rigidity and resistance to changes of shape or volume. Unlike a liquid, a solid object does not flow to take on the shape of its container, nor does it expand to fill the entire volume available to it like a...
state hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
. He was one of the first to study liquid helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
.
In 1937, at the height of the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
launched the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute Affair
UPTI Affair
The UPTI Affair was a criminal case against a number of scientists of the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute by the GUGB during 1938, during the Great Purge....
on the basis of falsified charges, and Shubnikov (along with several colleagues) was convicted and executed. He was posthumously rehabilitated. Until 1991 his true date of death was not officially acknowledged; the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedias in Russian and in the world, issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 .-Editions:There were three editions...
gave the year as 1945.
The Shubnikov Prize has been established by the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
.