Georgii Smolenskii

Born June 10 (23), 1910, in Yalta. Soviet physicist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1970). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Smolenskii graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1938 and became a professor there in 1959. He was a staff member of the Institute of Silicate Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1951 to 1956 and the Institute of Semiconductors of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1956 to 1972. He became affiliated with the Leningrad Physico-technical Institute in 1972.

Smolenskii’s principal works deal with ferroelectricity, ferrites, and the creation of a group of nonmetallic magnetic materials based on ferrites. He formulated an empirical criterion for the occurrence of ferroelectricity. Together with other workers, he discovered and investigated new ferroelectric materials, including ferroelectric-ferromagnetic materials. Smolenskii developed concepts of the nature of magneto-optical phenomena, studied various types of interactions in crystals, and made advances in the radio-frequency spectroscopic study of electrically and magnetically ordered substances.

Smolenskii received the State Prize of the USSR in 1952. He has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and several medals.