Elpidifor Anempodistovich Kirillov (8.10.1883—27.02.1964) was a Soviet physicist and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He was born in the village of Shibka (now in the Moldavian SSR). He graduated from Novorossiysk University in Odessa (1907), where he worked (head of the department of experimental physics from 1921 and from 1926 director of the Institute of Physics at Odessa University).
His main research concerned optics, in particular the study of optical and photoelectric phenomena in silver halides, of the internal photoelectric effect and of the physical foundations of the photographic process. In 1930 he discovered the negative photoelectric effect (a decrease of current under the action of light), studied its spectrum and showed that it is connected with the formation of the latent image, thereby establishing a connection between photoelectric and photochemical processes. He carried out (1946—53) a series of studies of the absorption spectra of thin layers of silver halide lightly coloured by the action of light, and he found in them a fine structure in the absorption bands of the photochemical coloration and of the latent image. For the discovery and study of the fine structure of the absorption spectrum of photochemically coloured silver halide he was awarded a USSR State Prize in 1952.