Il'ya Mikaylovich Frank | Biography

Il'ya Mikaylovich Frank was born on October 23, 1908, in Leningrad. He was the second son of Mikhail Luydvigovic Frank, a professor of mathematics, and Yelizaveta Mikhailovna Gratsianova Frank, a physician. Frank earned his bachelor's degree in physics from Moscow State University in 1930. Frank's specialization at Moscow State University was photoluminescence of solutions--substances that emit light without an external source acting upon them. He began his career at the State Optical Institute in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where he undertook a study of light-induced chemical reactions. It resulted in his being granted a doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences in 1935.

Following his graduation, Frank was invited by S. I. Vavilov, his former teacher at Moscow State University, to become a member of the newly established P. N. Lebedev Institute in Moscow where he remained for the rest of his academic career. Shortly thereafter, a colleague at the Lebedev Institute, Pavel Cherenkov discovered an intriguing new optical phenomenon whereby the passage of gamma rays through water resulted in the formation of a blue glow. The phenomenon was eventually named Cherenkov radiation in his honor. Cherenkov was not able, however, to explain how or why the phenomenon occurred.

In 1936, in an effort to develop a theoretical explanation for Cherenkov effect, Frank initiated research with a colleague at the Institute, Igor Tamm. Their hypothesis centered on the movement of charged particles at velocities greater than the speed of light. Though a fundamental law of physics says that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, it is possible for the speed of an object to be greater than the speed of light in another medium.

Frank and Tamm found that when an electron travels through a substance at a velocity greater than the speed of light, it emits energy in the form of Cherenkov radiation. The phenomenon has often been compared to a sonic boom or to the water waves generated by a sailing ship. Frank and Tamm were able to predict a number of phenomena that should accompany the release of Cherenkov radiation, all of which were soon confirmed experimentally.

Frank and Tamm's theory was soon applied to the invention of the Cherenkov detector. The Cherenkov detector is a device made of glass or some other transparent material through which rapidly moving particles pass, which allows the resulting Cherenkov radiation to be analyzed photoelectrically. This analysis determines particle properties such as charge and velocity. Cherenkov detectors have become important devices for the study of particles produced in accelerators such as the cyclotron, a device that accelerates particles to great speeds in a circular pattern. For their work on the Cherenkov effect and its implications, Frank, Tamm, and Cherenkov shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1958; they were the first Russians to be awarded the honor. The two scientists also received a number of other awards, including three Stalin Prizes, an Order of Lenin, and the Vavilov Gold Medal.

Apart from his research on Cherenkov radiation, which he continued as late as the 1980s, Frank was also involved in the study of nuclear phenomena for many years. During World War II, like other physicists, he researched nuclear processes related to the development of nuclear weapons and power plants. At the conclusion of the war, Frank was appointed director of the Lebedev Institute's Laboratory of the Atomic Nucleus, a position he held until his death on June 22, 1990. In 1944, Frank was concurrently appointed professor of physics at Moscow State University, where he was also made director of the Laboratory of Radioactive Radiation. After leaving the latter post in 1956, he oversaw the creation of the Laboratory of Neutron Physics at Dubna, a research center north of Moscow. The laboratory soon became an important center for the study of the neutron. Frank married Ella Abramovna Beilikhis, a historian, in 1937. Their only child, Alexander, is also a physicist employed at the Dubna neutron research center.