Alexei Abrikosov

Born on 25 June 1928 in Moscow, Alexei Abrikosov was a Nobel Prize–winning condensed-matter physicist. Abrikosov received doctorates in physics from the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow in 1951 and 1955. Over the next four decades, he worked at various scientific institutions in the USSR, including teaching positions at Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys. His extensive research encompassed magnetism, quantum electrodynamics, and semiconductors and semimetals. It was his 1950s work on type II superconductivity that would become his best known and for which he would receive the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics. Type II superconductors, which, unlike type I, retain their superconducting properties even in strong magnetic fields, have proven essential for the development of such technologies as MRI machines, particle accelerators, and cell phone towers. In 1991, after the Soviet Union collapsed, Abrikosov moved to the US and accepted the position of Argonne Distinguished Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. He took over Argonne’s condensed-matter theory group, which he led until 2000. Over his career he became a member of a number of professional societies, including the Russian Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society of London, and he was made a fellow of the American Physical Society. In addition to the Nobel, Abrikosov received the Soviet Union’s Lenin Prize in 1966, the Fritz London Memorial Prize in 1972, and the John Bardeen Award in 1991. He died in 2017 at age 88; here is the Physics Today obituary . (Photo credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

Date in History: 25 June 1928