SOLID STATE RADIATION PHYSICS LABORATORY

A team of 4 young physicists (Hrant Yeritsyan, Rafael Melkonyan, Norair Grigroyan and Aram Sahakyan) organized by Hrant Yeritsayn (he is still heading activities of the laboratory) in 1969, became the core of the Laboratory. These people were enthusiasts devoted to their work.

In 80’s the laboratory was performing diverse activities and employed a staff of 40 research and supporting personnel. Special contribution made by Slavik Airapetyan, Volodya Gevorkyan, Sergey Babayan, Yuri Nazaryan, Hrachia Abgaryan, Agasi Hovhannisyan, Ruben Atabekyan, Rafael Ezoyan, Anzhela Aslanyan, Felix Karapetyan and Levon Tolabchyan is acknowledged and appreciated.

At present highly qualified specialists make the core of the laboratory. Of them Hrant Yeritsyan, Vachagan Harutunyan, Aram Sahakyan, Norik Grigoryan, Sergei Nikogosyan and Eleonora Hakhverdyan have to be mentioned. All researchers are involved in International projects.

Apart from research work, the team also performed contractual projects covering issues of radiation stability of semiconductors and semiconductor-based equipment. These were joint projects carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Electronic Industry and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, in the framework of a common program of radiation stability studies under open space conditions and ionizing radiations.

The results obtained in laboratory were involved into transactions of “Radiation stability of electronic technique” editing by USSR defense Ministry and electronic Industry under the special code.

The budget for the projects in the fields mentioned above as well as in other areas of electron beam application (particularly cable industry, healthcare, polymer production, etc.) totaled 7 mln. Rubles (in USSR).

Starting from 1972, along with the works listed, 11governmental projects were carried out covering the issues of radiation defect formation, their physical nature and their effect on the properties of solid materials. Properties of A3B5-type semiconductors, semiconductor-dielectric compounds, laser-crystals (corundum, garnet), High-temperature semiconductors, electrical-physical and optical properties of natural minerals of Armenia, particularly zeolites, are topics that were in the focus of the Laboratory through its history.

At the presented the laboratory is carrying out works to design vacuum chamber simulating near earth some space conditions (electron with energy 8 MeV and solar irradiations, vacuum 1-6Torr, low temperature 120K) on the properties of materials and devices. These works are supported by ISTC contract No A-1229.

The laboratory prepared 4 Doctors of Physical-Mathematical Sciences and 14 PhDs, which are now employed by YerPhI and other scientific centers of Armenia.

More than 200 scientific articles in journals were published and presented in Conferences.