The Radiophysical Research Institute (NIRFI, FGNU NIRFI) is a federal state scientific institution under the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, located in Nizhny Novgorod at 25/12a Bolshaya Pechyorskaya Street.[1] Founded in 1956, it is one of the key centers of Russian radiophysics, radio astronomy, and ionospheric physics.[1]

History of Founding

The institute's origins trace back to the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory (1918-1928), on the basis of which the Gorky Research Physico-Technical Institute (GIFTI) at Gorky State University was created. In 1931, Alexander Alexandrovich Andronov, which during the Great Patriotic War worked closely with the radio engineering industry.[1] In 1945, on the initiative of that department's staff, the university opened the first radiophysics faculty in the USSR.[1][2]

NIRFI was established by a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers of June 27, 1956, No. 871-478; on July 10 of the same year, the USSR Minister of Higher Education issued an order on the organization of the institute.[1] The institute was housed in the building of the former Gorky Suvorov Military School on Lyadov Street (now Bolshaya Pechyorskaya).[1] For observations of solar radio emission, the institute was given the out-of-town "Zimyonki" laboratory, established in 1949 as part of GIFTI.[1]

The core of the scientific staff was made up of Maria Tikhonovna Grekhova (the institute's first director until 1972 and its principal initiator), Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg, V. S. Troitsky, I. L. Bershtein, M. M. Kobrin, as well as graduates of the radiophysics faculty of Gorky University: Andrey Viktorovich Gaponov-Grekhov, G. G. Getmantsev, B. N. Gershman, N. G. Denisov, V. A. Zverev (Zverev), Mikhail Adolfovich Miller.[1][2] In 1956, the institute's structure came to include an electrodynamics department headed by M. A. Miller, who had previously worked at GIFTI; it was at NIRFI that the concept of the averaged ponderomotive force, later named the Miller force, was formulated.[1] Among the institute's staff over the years were also Lev Alekseevich Morugin (concurrently head of department in 1956-1966), Alexander Grigoryevich Litvak (1965-1977), A. A. Andronov (1963-1977), E. F. Orlov (1957-1976), Tatyana Mikhailovna Zaboronkova (1970-1997), Kazimierz Stanisławowicz Stankevich, who headed the department of astrophysics and remote sensing of media.

Scientific Activity and Key Projects

The institute was created to carry out fundamental and applied research in radiophysics, radio engineering, and radio astronomy.[1] In the 1950s-1960s, NIRFI saw the final formation of the Gorky school of radiophysics, which became widely known in the USSR and around the world.[1][2] Its areas of work covered electrodynamics, the theory of radiation and diffraction, the physics of radiation-plasma interaction, the propagation of electromagnetic waves, astrophysics, and remote sensing of media.

The institute took part in Soviet space programs: NIRFI staff conducted the first experiments in space communications, participated in the creation of the "Proton" satellites for studying solar radiation particles, studied the surface of the Moon, and took part in the creation of lunar rovers.[3]

By the mid-1970s, NIRFI had become one of the leading institutes in the USSR. In 1976, the USSR Council of Ministers, on a proposal from the Academy of Sciences, decided to organize an academic institute in Gorky based on a number of NIRFI's departments: 10 departments, 4 laboratories, and 1 sector (620 people) split off from the institute, forming the basis for the Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, headed by A. V. Gaponov-Grekhov.[1]

On the initiative of G. G. Getmantsev (director from 1972), the SURA facility was built in 1976-1981 — the world's only mid-latitude facility for actively affecting the Earth's ionosphere, located at the "Vasilsursk" test site about 120 km from Nizhny Novgorod.[1][2] The facility was handed over to the State Commission in March 1981.[1] As of 2026, SURA is the only facility of its kind in Russia and one of three in the world that make it possible to study the ionosphere using radio waves.[2]

In 1980, V. A. Razin became director of the institute; in 1990 he was succeeded by S. V. Polyakov. From 2000 to 2019 the institute was headed by S. D. Snegiryov.[1] For more than ten years NIRFI has been part of the scientific structure of Lobachevsky University (UNN).[2] The institute's director is A. V. Shindin.[1]

Recognition

In 1969, the achievements of the Gorky school of radiophysics were recognized with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, awarded to the institute.[1]

In 2026, for NIRFI's 70th anniversary and the SURA facility's 45th anniversary, on May 25 and 26 the TV Tower switched on special illumination as part of the "On the Wave of Discoveries" partnership project by UNN and RTRS, timed to the university's 110th anniversary and RTRS's 25th anniversary.[2]

Links

  • Wikidata (archive) (Q4314525 — entry in the free knowledge base)
  • ROR (00zceqt96 — registry of research organizations)
  • ISNI (0000000406380171)

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (ru) — Radiophysical Research Institute (archive)
  2. Vremya N — Space landscapes and radio waves to adorn the Nizhny Novgorod TV tower for NIRFI's anniversary (archive)
  3. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Secret Nizhny Novgorod enterprises working in the field of space technology could well share some of their secrets, under this slogan was held… (archive)