Physics of Metals, Institute of the

(full name, Institute of the Physics of Metals of the Urals Scientific Center of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR), an institute founded by A. F. Ioffe in Sverdlovsk in 1932 from laboratories transferred from the Physicotechnical Institute. It was initially called the Urals Physicotechnical Institute of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry. In 1939 it was transferred to the Academy of Sciences system. Doctor of Technical Sciences M. N. Mikheev has been its director since its founding. Among the scientists working at the institute (1976) are the academicians of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR S. V. Vonsovskii and V. D. Sadovskii and the corresponding member Ia. S. Shur.

The institute’s scientists focus their efforts on problems in the theory of solids, the physics of magnetic phenomena, the strength and plasticity of metals and alloys, crystal growth, low-temperature physics, and semiconductor physics. New industrial materials have been developed at the institute, such as hard-magnetic materials with high magnetic energy, magnetostrictive alloys, magnetic films, magnetic semiconductors, alloys with high contact strength, and high-strength nonmagnetic steels. The institute also works on new technologies (hydroextrusion, thermomechanical working, phase cold-working, and working in strong pulsed fields) and methods and equipment for nondestructive magnetic and electromagnetic quality inspection of materials and products of the machine-tool and metallurgical industries.

The institute was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1967.