Amirkhanov, Khabibulla Ibragimovich

Khabibulla Ibragimovich Amirkhanov (born 22.04.1907) was a Soviet physicist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR (1949) and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1970). Born in the village of Karadakh (now in the Dagestan ASSR). He graduated from Azerbaijan University (1930). In 1932-50 he worked at the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR (director from 1944). From 1950 he was chairman of the Presidium of the Dagestan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He also taught at Azerbaijan University (professor from 1946). His research concerned semiconductor physics, geophysics and power engineering. He studied the thermoelectric properties of semiconductors and transport phenomena in strong magnetic fields, and found (1940) a new effect, which was named thermal rectification. He studied galvanomagnetic and thermomagnetic phenomena in semiconductors in strong magnetic fields, and this led to the discovery of the influence of the spin splitting of the Landau levels on quantum oscillations. He studied the behaviour of semiconductors at helium temperatures and in superstrong pulsed magnetic fields. He developed the potassium-argon method of determining the absolute age of minerals (1955) and a new method of geothermal prospecting for mineral deposits — the method of heat-flow variations (1964).