Alexandrov, Kirill Sergeyevich

Kirill Sergeyevich Alexandrov (born 09.01.1931) is a Soviet physicist and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1972). He was born in Leningrad. He graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute (1954). In 1954—58 he worked at the Institute of Crystallography of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Since 1958 he has worked at the L. V. Kirensky Institute of Physics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Krasnoyarsk) (from 1968 as deputy director). Since 1971 he has also been professor at Krasnoyarsk University. His research is in the fields of crystallography and crystal physics (the elasticity of anisotropic media, the physics of ferroelectrics, phase transitions in crystals). He developed a unified approach to homogeneous and to anisotropic solids from the standpoint of symmetry. He carried out the first ultrasonic studies of the propagation of elastic waves in crystals, and studied internal conical refraction, the rotation of the plane of polarisation of elastic waves, and the reflection and refraction of waves at the boundary between two anisotropic media; he also obtained circularly polarised elastic waves. He studied the elastic properties of rock-forming minerals and of rocks. He established the mechanisms by which spontaneous polarisation arises in a number of families of ferroelectrics, carried out a study of displacive transitions and analysed the phase transitions possible in the perovskite family. He predicted the existence of a new family of ferroelectrics.