On the Road to Tomsk

JUN 01, 1990

A contingent of US scientists gets a firsthand look at once‐secret Soviet pulsed‐power research facilities—and uncovers examples of exceptional capabilities.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881247

Magne Kristiansen

Arthur H. Guenther

James E. Thompson

From 25 June to 4 July 1989, a group of 20 US scientists and engineers from industry, academia and Federal research facilities had a singular opportunity to visit several previously “closed” Soviet scientific installationswhere research in pulsed‐power technology is conducted. These installations, many of which had never been seen by a Westerner, included the Institute of High Current Electronics and the Nuclear Physics Institute, both in Tomsk; the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute; and the Kurchatov Institute for Atomic Energy’s facility at Troitsk, near Moscow. Various members of the US group also visited the Yefremov Institute for Electro‐Physical Apparatus (Leningrad), the Lebedev Institute (Moscow), the USSR Research Center for Surface and Vacuum Investigation (Moscow), the Institute of High Temperatures (Moscow), the Institute of Nuclear Physics (Novosibirsk) and others. Throughout our journey, Soviet researchers conveyed the spirit of glasnost through their candor and their interest in a genuine exchange of ideas, a spirit often missing from earlier US‐Soviet scientific interactions.

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More about the authors

Magne Kristiansen, Plasma and Pulsed Power Laboratory, Texas Tech University.

Arthur H. Guenther, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

James E. Thompson, University of New Mexico.