Penkin, Nikolai Petrovich

Born on November 27, 1913 in the city of Torzhok, Tver province, in a priest's family.

In 1931 he graduated from the Pskov Pedagogical College, after which he worked as a teacher of physics and mathematics in one of the rural schools of the Leningrad Region.

In 1932 he was recalled to the Pskov Pedagogical Institute as the head of the physical office, where he worked until 1937.

After that, for some time he was an employee of the Ice Department of the All-Union Arctic Institute .

From March 1938 he transferred to work at Leningrad University , where he worked until the end of his life, having gone through all the stages of a hierarchical scientific career from laboratory assistant to professor.

At first, he gives lectures, then works in the spectroscopic laboratory of D. S. Rozhdestvensky , being his personal assistant, at the same time finishing the correspondence department of the physical department of Leningrad State University.

After the start of World War II , he was evacuated to Yelabuga as part of a special laboratory at the Leningrad State University, where he was engaged in defense research work.

In 1943, at the insistence of the then rector of Leningrad State University A.A. Voznesensky , he moved to Saratov with a group of university physicists, and in 1944 he returned to Leningrad freed from the fascist blockade.

In 1947 he defended his Ph.D. thesis, and transferred to the staff of NIFI as a senior researcher, then became an assistant professor of the Faculty of Physics, Deputy Dean, from 1951 to 1956 - Dean of the Faculty of Physics.

From 1957 to 1962 - Director of the NIFI , replacing S.E. Frisch , then defended his doctoral dissertation, and in May 1963 he was awarded the title of professor.

As a professor, he works at his native department of optics from 1962 to January 1967. In February of the same year, he was appointed vice-rector of the Leningrad State University for scientific work, where he worked until December 1972.

Later, performing administrative duties, he achieved a return to scientific work and headed the department of optics until 1988.

He died on April 14, 1989, was buried in St. Petersburg .

Daughter Natalia, a theoretical physicist. Associate Professor, Candidate of Physics and Mathematics, Associate Professor, Department of Quantum Mechanics, Physics Department, St. Petersburg State University.

Scientific activity

Creator of a combined method based on the simultaneous measurement of total absorption and dispersion. This made it possible to reliably determine the absolute values ​​of the oscillator strengths. He did a lot in the laboratory to study the shape of the contours of spectral lines broadened by collisions. At the facility with an electron beam source, measurements were made of the effective cross sections for the excitation of atoms by electrons. The stationary and decaying plasma of a gas discharge in metal vapors was studied. For the first time in his laboratory, data were obtained on the diffusion coefficients of excited atoms in intrinsic and impurity gases. These data made it possible to facilitate understanding of some important details in the processes of interaction of laser radiation with matter, in particular, in the phenomenon of light-induced drift. An important area was the study of low-temperature plasma.

He spoke at various conferences, gave lectures both in the USSR and abroad (in the countries of the social camp, as well as in England, Sweden, Austria, Finland, the Netherlands, the USA, and China).

The author of more than 200 articles, co-author of the monograph "Spectroscopy of a gas-discharge plasma", under his leadership more than 30 employees defended their thesis.

• Order of the Red Banner of Labor
• Order of the Badge of Honor
• Title " Honored Scientist of the RSFSR "
• D. S. Rozhdestvensky Prize (together with A. M. Shukhtin , 1971) - for a series of works on the development and application of the D. S. Rozhdestvensky interference method
• anniversary medals

• Penkin, Nikolai Petrovich on the official website of the RAS
• Penkin, Nikolai Petrovich on the mathematical portal Math-Net.Ru
• The magazine "St. Petersburg University" Nikolai Petrovich Penkin. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth (neopr.) . journal.spbu.ru. Date of treatment May 1, 2016.