Development of 60-Kw Magnetrons in the Artificial Famine Plagued Ukraine in the Early 1930’S
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
In the Labor People’s Name: Development of 60-kW Magnetrons in the Artificial Famine Plagued Ukraine in the Early 1930’s Alexander I. Nosich Alexei A. Kostenko Dept. Computational Electromagnetics Dept. Radio Introscopy IRE NASU IRE NASU Kharkov 61085, Ukraine Kharkov 61085, Ukraine [email protected] [email protected] Abstract— The emergence and formation of microwave, department of the St.-Petersburg Electro-Technical Institute electronics and radar community in Ukraine had been headed by A. Popov, Russian pioneer of wireless telegraphy; closely tied to the invention and development of original however he spent the summers of 1905 and 1906 studying in high-power decimeter-wave split-anode magnetrons in Hettingen, Germany where his professor was N. T. Simon. Kharkov in the 1920-30’s. Navigating their lives and After earning a Magister degree in St. Petersburg in 1911, he research between the deadly Orwellian torrents of the took a post of docent in KhSU where he was promoted to early USSR, the scientists had to close their eyes on the professor in 1912 [1]. From 1914 to 1921, i.e. all through the politically motivated famine, which was devastating WWI, communist revolution, and civil war, he headed there Ukrainian countryside. Both microwave research and the department of physics. development and food confiscations were done in the name During 1917-1920, the power in Kharkov changed five of labor people. times between the national Ukrainian forces, Lenin’s Russian communists, German military, and Russian monarchists. The Keywords-early magnetron; Slutskin; Ukraine invasion of Ukraine via Kharkov in December of 1917 was, in fact, the first aggression of Lenin against a neighbor country. I. INTRODUCTION Still this was not as bad as in Kiev where the power changed The history of magnetron development in the ex-USSR is hands 17 times until the retreating Polish Army blew up the poorly documented and generally not well-known in the West. bridges across the Dniper River in July 1920. Fortunately for Among several laboratories that took part in this development, the Ukrainians, Lenin opted for Ukraine as it was first claimed important role was played by the laboratory located in by the nationalist government when asking for autonomy in Kharkov (a.k.a. Kharkiv), Ukraine. This paper is aimed at the 1917: within the borders of the former imperial regions proper positioning of the research into decimeter-band split- (guberniyas) whose population was predominantly Ukrainian. anode magnetrons with champion output power done there in Then Kiev was considered politically unreliable and the 1920-30s. Another aim is to remind the reader that this dangerously close to the Polish border. Therefore Kharkov’s remarkable achievement was done in the never-met-before nearness to Moscow and strong communist cells among environment of severe totalitarian regime and actually used industrial workers suggested choosing it the capital of the the funds accumulated by the government at the expense of Soviet Ukraine; the city kept this status till 1934. starving to death millions of independent farmers in Ukraine. After the Soviet regime was set in, the universities in Ukraine underwent multiple reorganizations directed at the radical elimination of potential dissidence and opposition. II. PRE-HISTORY First of all, they were downsized and divided into smaller It was late November 1911 when a young newcomer left specialized schools. Professors were repeatedly scrutinized the long-distance train at the Kharkov station and took a about their attitude to the new power and the line they had horse-cab to the city center. This was new lecturer in physics followed in the years of civil war. Funds for universities were at the School of Physics and Mathematics of the Kharkov scarce. All this led to sharp decline of research. No surprise State (then, Imperial) University (KhSU). This university was that after a few years of such misery, many of a handful of already famous at the third, since 1804, in Russian Empire professors who remained in three major university centers of after Moscow and Kazan Universities, and the lecturer was Ukraine: Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa, left for Moscow as soon quite happy to get his post there. He was Dmitry Rozhansky as the life there started improving [2]. However, the first half (1882-1936), who graduated from the elite St.-Petersburg of the 1920’s was a short time of relatively greater degree of University in 1904. His first small post was at the physics freedom, both economically and politically, in what was eventually named “the USSR” in the end of 1922. This work was partially sponsored by the IEEE via a Life Member Committee grant. 978-1-4244-5611-6/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 82 engineering and initiated research into generating the electromagnetic oscillations of high frequency. Even after leaving Kharkov in 1921, Rozhansky continued consulting his former laboratory, through the visits done twice a year, and kept close contacts with his former staff and students. At that time he performed, both in Leningrad and in Kharkov, investigations into short electric waves generated by the cathode tubes after the methods developed initially by Barkgausen and Kurtz in Germany. To his colleagues, Rozhansky was remembered as interesting and sociable person easy to get on with. He always behaved with a great respect toward a speaker, without a shade of authority of a reputed scientist. He was credited for encouragement of young researchers and promotion of careers of many of them. Here, it will be no mistake to say that the main discovery made by Rozhansky in Kharkov was not a physical effect however a person - Abram A. Slutskin (Fig. 1), his best student and the man who led, single-handedly, the Figure 1. Abram Slutskin, circa 1945 research and development into magnetrons and radars in Ukraine from 1925 to 1950. Being a “bread-basket” of the former empire, Ukraine was recovering from the war-time devastation sooner than III. UKRAINIAN MAGNETRON PIONEERS other provinces. The science was then still a matter of random Abram Slutskin (1891-1950) entered the school of enthusiasts and Rozhansky was one of them. In 1921, one of physics and mathematics of KhSU in 1910, just before two first research departments of physics in Ukraine was Rozhansky took his post there. One of innovations introduced established at KhSU under his guidance. by the young professor was a revival of the physics seminar However, after his family, which lived in a countryside with active participation of students. This seminar, according house, was robbed by deserters Rozhansky eventually gave up to Slutskin, determined his ever-lasting interest in [1] and accepted, in 1921, a research post at the prestigious electromagnetic waves. He graduated from the university in new government Radio Laboratory in Nizhni Novgorod. Next 1916 and worked there as assistant (till 1928), and then as year he moved back to St. Petersburg, then renamed as professor of the physics department. In 1928, he was on Leningrad, to the Central Radio Laboratory. From 1925 he training in Dresden, Germany where he visited laboratory of worked at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology Barkgausen. In 1937, he was awarded the degree of D.Sc. (LIPT), where he initiated, in 1935, a special laboratory to (Soviet higher doctorate, earned through research) without explore the opportunities of detection of aircraft with the defending a thesis. In 1939, he was elected a corresponding meter-band waves using the pulse method. In 1930, as member and in 1948 academician (fellow) of the AS of frequently happened then, he spent several months in prison Ukraine. His works had been focused on the development of being interrogated in relation to the “Sabotage Case of Electric magnetrons and pulsed radar [3]. He died of the heart attack Industry”. His interrogators, as he told later to his friends and waiting for a flight home after a mission to Moscow. family, tried to extract from him a confession that “he was As known, A.W. Hull was the first to publish the idea of inventing a device able to distantly read the thoughts of magnetron in the papers appeared in 1921 [4]. In fact, his Comrade Stalin” [1]. He was released without explanations magnetron was a low-frequency source, with electromagnet and returned to his job. This event had apparently had no winding incorporated into the anode circuit and hence the serious consequences, as in 1933 he was elected a oscillation circuit of the device. Soon after that, A. Zacek in corresponding member (junior fellow) of the USSR Academy Prague demonstrated (1924) a possibility of generating the of Sciences (AS). However it could definitely play back later high-frequency oscillations by introducing a resonance circuit if he did not die just before the Great Purge of 1937. between magnetron’s cathode and anode, and applying a The Kharkov period of Rozhansky’s career as a permanent magnetic field of the strength close to its critical scientist was devoted to the investigation of spark-gap value [5]. E. Habann revealed (also in 1924) that, by splitting oscillators, electric arc, oscillations in coupled circuits, the anode into two equal segments (split anode) and placing a rarefied gas discharges, etc. It looks like he had early gained a high-frequency circuit between them, one could drastically reputation of leader in the physics of electrical and magnetic increase the output power [6]. In 1928-1929 in Japan, H. Yagi phenomena. Moreover, he grouped around himself the likely and K. Okabe also made a series of pioneering experimental thinking associates, supported a creative atmosphere in the works with a magnetron having a split anode in the form of department, and determined all major topics of research.