Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russian SFSR, USSR on 14 April 1933[12] to Armenian parents.[13][14] His father was from Igdir (now in Turkey),[15] while his mother was from Armavir in what is now Russia's Krasnodar Krai.[16] Oganessian spent his childhood in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia, where his family relocated in 1939. His father, Tsolak, a thermal engineer, was invited to work on the synthetic rubber plant in Yerevan. After the Eastern Front of World War II commenced, his family decided to not return to Rostov since it was occupied by Germans. Yuri attended and finished school in Yerevan.[16][4][15] He initially wanted to become a painter.[15]
Oganessian was married to Irina Levonovna (1932–2010), a violinist and a music teacher in Dubna,[17][18] with whom he had two daughters.[19][20] As of 2017, his daughters resided in the U.S.[21]
"A remarkable physicist and experimentalist… his work is characterised by originality, an ability to approach a problem from an unexpected side, and to achieve an ultimate result."
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.[10]
Discovery of superheavy chemical elements
During the 1970s, Oganessian invented the "cold fusion" method, a technique to produce transactinide elements (superheavy elements)[7] Though they share a name this process is unrelated to the unproven energy-producing process also named cold fusion. Oganessian's process was crucial for the discoveries of elements from 106 to 113.[7] 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,[24][25][12]meitnerium, hassium,[26]darmstadtium, roentgenium, and copernicium.[7]
Sherry Yennello has called him the "grandfather of superheavy elements".[7] Oganessian is the author of three discoveries, a monograph, 11 inventions, and more than 300 scientific papers.[9]
During early 2016, science writers and bloggers speculated that one of the superheavy elements would be named oganessium or oganesson.[36] The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced in November 2016 that element 118 would be named oganesson to honor Oganessian.[37][38][39] It was first observed in 2002 at JINR, by a joint team of Russian and American scientists. Directed by Oganessian, the team included American scientists of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California.[40] Prior to this announcement, a dozen elements had been named after people,[c] but of those, only seaborgium was likewise named while its namesake (Glenn T. Seaborg) was alive.[7] (The names einsteinium and fermium were suggested when their namesakes, respectively Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, were still alive; however, by the time the names became official, Einstein and Fermi had both died.) As Seaborg died in 1999, Oganessian is the only currently living namesake of an element.[41][42][43]
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.[12]
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"[54][55]
UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences (2021)[58]
Recognition in Armenia
Oganessian was granted Armenian citizenship in July 2018 by Premier Nikol Pashinyan.[59] 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).[60] In 2017 HayPost issued a postage stamp dedicated to Oganessian.[61] In 2022 the Central Bank of Armenia issued a silver commemorative coin dedicated to Oganessian and the element oganesson (Og).[62] In April 2022 he was named honorary professor of Yerevan State University.[46]
^The names einsteinium and fermium for elements 99 and 100 were proposed when their namesakes (Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, respectively) were still alive, but were not made official until Einstein and Fermi had died.[11]
^ ab"About FLNR". flerovlab.jinr.ru. Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Archived from the original on 19 June 2017.
^Mileham, Rebecca (October 2018). "Cold war, hot science"(PDF). Research Culture: Collaboration Collections. The Royal Society: 44. Archived from the original(PDF) on 25 February 2022. ...says Oganessian, in excellent English.
^Morita, Kosuke; Morimoto, Kouji; Kaji, Daiya; Akiyama, Takahiro; Goto, Sin-ichi; Haba, Hiromitsu; Ideguchi, Eiji; Kanungo, Rituparna; Katori, Kenji; Koura, Hiroyuki; Kudo, Hisaaki; Ohnishi, Tetsuya; Ozawa, Akira; Suda, Toshimi; Sueki, Keisuke; Xu, HuShan; Yamaguchi, Takayuki; Yoneda, Akira; Yoshida, Atsushi; Zhao, YuLiang (2004). "Experiment on the Synthesis of Element 113 in the Reaction 209Bi(70Zn,n)278113". Journal of the Physical Society of Japan. 73 (10): 2593–2596. Bibcode:2004JPSJ...73.2593M. doi:10.1143/JPSJ.73.2593.
^Oganessian, Yu. Ts.; Utyonkov, V. K.; Lobanov, Yu. V.; Abdullin, F. Sh.; Polyakov, A. N.; Shirokovsky, I. V.; Tsyganov, Yu. S.; Gulbekian, G. G.; Bogomolov, S. L.; Gikal, B.; Mezentsev, A.; Iliev, S.; Subbotin, V.; Sukhov, A.; Buklanov, G.; Subotic, K.; Itkis, M.; Moody, K.; Wild, J.; Stoyer, N.; Stoyer, M.; Lougheed, R. (October 1999). "Synthesis of Superheavy Nuclei in the 48Ca + 244Pu Reaction". Physical Review Letters. 83 (16): 3154. Bibcode:1999PhRvL..83.3154O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3154. S2CID109929705.
^Oganessian, Yu. Ts.; Utyonkov, V. K.; Dmitriev, S. N.; Lobanov, Yu. V.; Itkis, M. G.; Polyakov, A. N.; Tsyganov, Yu. S.; Mezentsev, A. N.; Yeremin, A. V.; Voinov, A.; Sokol, E.; Gulbekian, G.; Bogomolov, S.; Iliev, S.; Subbotin, V.; Sukhov, A.; Buklanov, G.; Shishkin, S.; Chepygin, V.; Vostokin, G.; Aksenov, N.; Hussonnois, M.; Subotic, K.; Zagrebaev, V.; Moody, K.; Patin, J.; Wild, J.; Stoyer, M.; Stoyer, N.; et al. (2005). "Synthesis of elements 115 and 113 in the reaction 243Am + 48Ca". Physical Review C. 72 (3): 034611. Bibcode:2005PhRvC..72c4611O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.72.034611.
^Oganessian, Yu. Ts.; Utyonkov, V. K.; Lobanov, Yu. V.; Abdullin, F. Sh.; Polyakov, A. N.; Shirokovsky, I. V.; Tsyganov, Yu. S.; Gulbekian, G. G.; Bogomolov, S. L.; Gikal, B.; Mezentsev, A.; Iliev, S.; Subbotin, V.; Sukhov, A.; Ivanov, O.; Buklanov, G.; Subotic, K.; Itkis, M.; Moody, K.; Wild, J.; Stoyer, N.; Stoyer, M.; Lougheed, R.; Laue, C.; Karelin, Ye.; Tatarinov, A. (2000). "Observation of the decay of 292116". Physical Review C. 63 (1): 011301. Bibcode:2000PhRvC..63a1301O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.63.011301.
^Oganessian, Yu. Ts.; Abdullin, F. Sh.; Bailey, P. D.; Benker, D. E.; Bennett, M. E.; Dmitriev, S. N.; Ezold, J. G.; Hamilton, J. H.; Henderson, R. A.; Itkis, M. G.; Lobanov, Yu. V.; Mezentsev, A. N.; Moody, K. J.; Nelson, S. L.; Polyakov, A. N.; Porter, C. E.; Ramayya, A. V.; Riley, F. D.; Roberto, J. B.; Ryabinin, M. A.; Rykaczewski, K. P.; Sagaidak, R. N.; Shaughnessy, D. A.; Shirokovsky, I. V.; Stoyer, M. A.; Subbotin, V. G.; Sudowe, R.; Sukhov, A. M.; Tsyganov, Yu. S.; et al. (April 2010). "Synthesis of a New Element with Atomic Number Z=117". Physical Review Letters. 104 (14): 142502. Bibcode:2010PhRvL.104n2502O. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.142502. PMID20481935.
^Medvedev, Yuri (18 December 2018). "Перевернуть пирамиду". Rossiyskaya Gazeta (in Russian). No. 285. Archived from the original on 11 August 2020. Александр Михайлович, и все же ваш прогноз. Кто из наших ученых может в ближайшее время получить заветного Нобеля? Многие очевидным претендентом считают академика Юрия Оганесяна... Александр Сергеев: Конечно, кандидатура достойнейшая. Очень надеюсь, что ему поможет наступающий год, который Генеральная ассамблея ООН объявила Годом Периодической таблицы химических элементов.
