Vladimir Maksimovich Tuchkevich (1904–1997)

Director of the Institute from 1967 по 1987

Born on December 29, 1904, in Yanoutsy (Ukraine). In 1928, he graduated from Kyiv University. Starting in 1935, he worked at the Ioffe Institute. He defended his Doctoral dissertation in Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1955 at the Ioffe Institute. He became a Corresponding Member (1968) and Full Member (1970) of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now RAS). He was named a Hero of Socialist Labor (1984).

His early work was related to the physics of X-rays. During the war years, he was a participant and organizer of work on mine protection for Navy ships. In the early post-war years, he participated in work on isotope separation within the framework of the Soviet atomic project. His greatest contributions were in the field of semiconductor physics and technology: high-power semiconductor devices, the first Soviet planar transistor, thyristors, single crystals of pure germanium, germanium rectifiers with record parameters, etc. From 1936, he lectured at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (now St. Petersburg Polytechnic University) and, alongside his duties as director, supervised higher education organizations. Many of his students and colleagues became prominent physicists.

Among his numerous distinctions and awards: Stalin Prize (1942), Lenin Prize (1966), Gold Medal "For Merit in Science and Humanity" (Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1977), Hero of Socialist Labor (1984).

He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Technical Physics.