Kurchatov Institute Bashny.Net

When I was a kid, one of the first scientists of whom I learned was Igor Kurchatov: a monument to him in the form of a huge, like a fairy-tale hero's head is not rarely in the way of my walks in the home district. Of course, attracted the attention and a huge fenced area, which could be a very long time to circumvent, always wanted to see what there doing. And last year I shot with high-rise buildings on the street Turquoise, which, thanks to its proximity to the Institute was able to look over the fence.
So, last week I had the opportunity not only to look over the fence, but also to visit the area as tourists, to consider all the issues closely and torment the staff of the Scientific Center, which is interesting and in detail all told. Here I saw the history and present activities of the Institute with their own eyes the first nuclear reactor in Europe to advanced nano- and biotechnologies.

(40 pics + text) Writes Docent
Source d0cent.com

Historical and informative reference.

Russian Research Center "Kurchatov Institute" (RRC "KI") was founded in Moscow in 1943 as a Laboratory №2 USSR Academy of Sciences to develop atomic weapons. Since 1960's called the Institute of Atomic Energy. Kurchatov. In 1991 he received the status of the Russian Research Center. The Institute played a key role in ensuring the security of the country. Here, in 1946 it created the first in Eurasia nuclear reactor F-1. In 1949 he developed the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1953, the world's first thermonuclear bomb, in 1954 the world's first commercial nuclear power plant, in 1955 built the world's first installation of Tokmak in 1957-58 for the first reactor icebreakers, submarines and space technology . In 1999 he set up Russia's first synchrotron radiation source. Since 2008, a pilot project on the creation of the National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute».
The territory of the RRC "KI" occupies 100 acres and employs 5,000 employees, including 2,000 scientists, doctors and 900 candidates of sciences, 21 members of the Academy of Sciences.
The RRC "KI" are 5 nuclear research reactors, 14 critical reactor assembly, a source of synchrotron radiation, thermonuclear installation Tokmak, MATERIAL hot cell complex for the study of irradiated materials, cluster processing line for the manufacture of integrated circuits, plant for isotope separation, the complex physical, chemical and radiochemical laboratories, data center-based supercomputer capacity 120Tflops, laboratory and genomic analysis of synthetic cells, the protein factory and NANOFAB.
More information about the history and activities of the Kurchatov Institute, you can visit the official website.

Initially we were shown and told about the reactor F-1 (the first physical) in which 25 December 1946 under the leadership of Kurchatov in the first in Eurasia was made self-sustaining fission reaction of uranium, allowing conduct the necessary studies for the design of industrial production of plutonium.
The reactor is in operation so far, and his occasional use.

02 The chief engineer of reactor F-1 Evgeny Filippovich Polnikov.

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Pokazometry F-1 reactor.

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Remote Control F-1 reactor.

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The control room F-1.

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Underground space reactor: Left reactor itself F1, surrounded graphitic units, to the right a thick concrete door opener, which is closed during operation of the reactor

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Graphite stack.

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The radiation background was normal, although we were warned that in this room it could exceed it by 5 times. When the reactor is running, of course this can not be in the room at all.

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In the underground room of the reactor is partitioned corridor with concrete blocks, reducing radiation.

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At the entrance to the corridor set periscope presented Kurchatov Institute divers, you can look through it into the upper reactor hall. Real rarity!

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The upper reactor hall. There is a small museum exhibition devoted to the F-1 reactor.

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The reactor hall. There is loaded into the reactor uranium.

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Reactor hall.

The next object was visiting the laboratory of genomics. These laboratories are part of the research center nano-, bio-, information and cognitive sciences and technologies (NBIC technologies). Simply put, there are combined capabilities of many scientific disciplines and conducted fairly extensive research on the human genome and other organisms. In particular, it is carried out whole genome sequencing, conducting research in the study of the etiology of cancer and other social diseases.

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Product nano and biotechnology: a matrix, which bear genetic material of patients studied. On the basis of these matrices are studied mutations specific to certain diseases and also carries out extensive genetic characteristics of ethnic groups.

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Genomic analyzers Illumina.

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Cans, flasks, test tubes and other things.

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Automatic capture (pipetting) samples of biological origin and chemicals.

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Laboratory studies of protein.

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Liquid chromatography.

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Biological hazard.

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Again tubes.

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Tools for sampling.

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Device for amplification (increase in copy number) of nucleic acids.

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Laboratory of Molecular Biology.

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Very cool and expensive Titan electron microscope laboratory microscope Kurchatov NBIC-Center.

Then we visited the synchrotron. It is an annular chamber which accelerate electrons and receive synchrotron radiation (SR) of different spectrum: X-ray, infrared and ultrafialetovogo, bunches of which are used in the same laboratories for a variety of measurements. Kurchatov synchrotron began to build in 1986, in 1989, much work has slowed down, and it was only opened in 1999, the same was received and the first beam of radiation from a large storage Siberia-2. Now synchrotron is used as a setting for collective use, accept applications for joint experimentation.
The building of the synchrotron, the so-called "clean zone" is also an atomic force microscope, and installation NANOFAB molecular beam epiktatsii.