Discoverer of superheavy elements: Flerovium (1999), Livermorium (2000), Oganesson (2002), Moscovium (2003), Nihonium (2004), Tennessine (2009)
Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian is a Soviet, Armenian and Russian nuclear physicist who is best known as a researcher of superheavy chemical elements. He participated with the discovery of multiple elements of the periodic table. He succeeded Georgy Flyorov as director of the Flyorov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in 1989 and is now its scientific director. The heaviest element known of the periodic table, oganesson, is named after him, only the second time that an element was named after a living person.
Career
Oganessian graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) in 1956. He thereafter sought to join the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, but as there were no vacancies left in Gersh Budker’s team, he was instead recruited by Georgy Flyorov and began working at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, near Moscow.
He became director of the Flyorov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at JINR in 1989, after Flyorov retired, and had the job until 1996, when he was named the scientific director of the Flyorov laboratory.
Discovery of superheavy chemical elements
During the 1970s, Oganessian invented the « cold fusion » method (unrelated to the unproven energy-producing process cold fusion), a technique to produce transactinide elements (superheavy elements). It was crucial for the discoveries of elements from 106 to 113. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, the partnership of JINR, directed by Oganessian, and the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, resulted in the discovery of six chemical elements (107 to 112): bohrium, meitnerium, hassium, darmstadtium, roentgenium, and copernicium.
His newer technique, termed « hot fusion » (also unrelated to nuclear fusion as an energy process), helped to discover elements 113 to 118, completing the seventh row of the periodic table. The technique involved bombarding calcium into targets containing heavier radioactive elements that are rich in neutrons at a cyclotron. The elements discovered using this method are nihonium (2003; also discovered by Riken in Japan using cold fusion), flerovium (1999), moscovium (2003), livermorium (2000), tennessine (2009), and oganesson (2002).
Honors and awards
In 1990, he was elected Corresponding Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and in 2003 a Full Member (Academician) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Oganessian has honorary degrees from Goethe University Frankfurt (2002), University of Messina (2009), and Yerevan State University (2022). In 2019, he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
State awards
- Order of the Badge of Honour
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- Lenin Komsomol Prize (1967)
- USSR State Prize (1975)
- Order of Friendship of Peoples (1993)
- Order « For Merit to the Fatherland », 4th class (1999)
- Order « For Merit to the Fatherland », 3rd class (2003)
- Order of Honour (2009)
- State Prize of the Russian Federation (2010)
- Order of Honor (Armenia) (2016)
- Order « For Merit to the Fatherland », 2nd class (2017)
- Order of St. Mesrop Mashtots (Armenia, 2019)
Professional awards
- Kurchatov Medal (1989)
- Lise Meitner Prize of the European Physical Society (2000)
- Lomonosov Gold Medal (2018) « for fundamental research in the fields of interaction of complex nuclei and experimental evidence of existence of an ‘island of stability’ for superheavy elements »
- Demidov Prize (2019)
- UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences (2021)
Recognition in Armenia
Oganessian was granted Armenian citizenship in July 2018 by Premier Nikol Pashinyan. Oganessian is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST). He is also the chairman of the international scientific board of the Alikhanian National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute). In 2017 HayPost issued a postage stamp dedicated to Oganessian. In 2022 the Central Bank of Armenia issued a silver commemorative coin dedicated to Oganessian and the element oganesson (Og). In April 2022 he was named honorary professor of Yerevan State University.
