Oleg Vladimirovich Losev (May 10, 1903, Tver — January 22, 1942, Leningrad) was a Soviet physicist and inventor, one of the first researchers of semiconductors, holder of 15 author's certificates, and Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (1938). The key period of Losev's scientific career is associated with Nizhny Novgorod: from 1919 to 1929 he worked at the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory (NRL), where he made the discoveries that brought him worldwide fame.[2][3]

Early Years and Path into Science

Losev was born into the family of an office clerk at a railway car factory. He studied at the Tver realschule (a secondary school with a science-oriented curriculum), where he became interested in physics. His teacher Vadim Leonidovich Lyovshin (1896–1969), later an academician and winner of the 1951 Stalin Prize, instilled in the young man a taste for experimental science.[1][4] In 1916, after attending a lecture by Staff Captain Vladimir Mikhailovich Leshchinsky (1887–1919), head of the Tver radio receiving station, Losev became fascinated with radio engineering. Through him he met Lieutenant Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bonch-Bruevich (1888–1940) and Professor Vladimir Konstantinovich Lebedinsky (1868–1937) of the Riga Polytechnic — a leading Russian authority in the field of radio.[2]

In 1920, after finishing the realschule, Losev went to Moscow to enroll in an institute of communications. There, at the First All-Russian Radio Engineering Congress, he met Lebedinsky and Bonch-Bruevich again, and they invited him to the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory, founded in 1918.[2]

Work at the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory (1919–1929)

Losev began independent research in V.K. Lebedinsky's laboratory almost immediately. As early as January 1921, his first article, "Frequency Multipliers," signed with only the letter "O," was submitted to the journal "Radiotekhnik"; in June of the same year, the first Russian-language publication on magnetic amplifiers appeared.[2]

On January 13, 1921, Losev discovered that a zincite–carbon detector was capable of generating electrical oscillations. Building on this discovery, in 1922 he created a regenerative radio receiver based on a semiconductor crystal — the crystadyne. The device ran on pocket batteries and picked up signals from distant stations. French, British, Dutch, and American scientific journals called the crystadyne a sensational invention and its nineteen-year-old creator a "professor."[2][3] In 1924, Losev published a brochure titled "Crystadyne."[2]

In 1923, using a carborundum detector, Losev recorded a "cold, inertia-free glow" produced when an electric current passed through it — a phenomenon that world physics came to call electroluminescence, or the "Losev glow" (Losev light, Lossew Licht). In modern terms, this amounts to the invention of the semiconductor light-emitting diode (LED).[2][4] In 1925–1926, Losev discovered the conversion of oscillation frequency by means of crystals and vacuum tubes — a new method of frequency division and multiplication.[3]

Later Work and Recognition

In 1929, Losev moved to the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute, and from 1938 he worked at the Leningrad 1st Medical Institute. In that same year, 1938, he was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences for his research on electroluminescence, without defending a dissertation.[3] Losev was the author of 15 inventor's certificates; he also studied photoelectric effects in semiconductors and proposed a new method of manufacturing photocells.[3]

Losev died in Leningrad on January 22, 1942, during the siege. Researchers of his legacy point out that Losev's discoveries were ahead of their time and had in effect been forgotten by the time semiconductor electronics began its rapid development: the transistor effect, for the discovery of which John Bardeen received the Nobel Prize in 1956, had been anticipated by the work of the scientist's Nizhny Novgorod period.[4] The magazine Expert (2002, no. 15) stated: "the peak of Losev's creative activity falls in the years 1921–1928, when he worked at the Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory. And this is no coincidence — the NRL was a unique organization, the like of which has never existed in Russia since."[2]

Sources

  1. r3i.qrz.ru — PHYSICIST LOSEV (archive)
  2. museum.unn.ru — On January 22, 2022, it will be 80 years since the death of O. V. Losev, an outstanding scientist and inventor in the field of semiconductor technology and optoelectronics (archive)
  3. dic.academic.ru — Losev, Oleg Vladimirovich — Who is Losev, Oleg Vladimirovich?
  4. m-robor.ru — O. V. Losev discovered electroluminescence and the crystal detector (archive)