Kirill Dmitriyevich Sinelnikov (29.05.1901 — 16.10.1966) — a Soviet experimental physicist, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (1948). Born in Pavlograd (now in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast). He graduated from the Crimean University in Simferopol (1923). In 1924-30 he worked at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute (in 1928—30 he was on a scientific mission in England, where he worked under E. Rutherford); from 1930 he was head of a department of the Kharkov Physico-Technical Institute (director in 1944—65), and from 1936 professor and head of a chair at Kharkov University.
His research concerned nuclear physics, the physics and technology of accelerators, the physics and technology of vacuum, physical materials science, plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear fusion, the physics of dielectrics and semiconductors, and physical and electron optics. In 1932, together with A. K. Walter, A. I. Leipunsky and G. D. Latyshev, he split the nucleus of the lithium atom with protons accelerated to 300—400 keV; in 1937, with A. K. Walter, he built the electrostatic accelerator for an energy of 3.5 MeV, then the largest in Europe; and in 1938—41 he developed the first diffusion oil pumps in the USSR. Under Sinelnikov's direction and with his participation, a whole series of linear accelerators of electrons and protons was built at the Kharkov Physico-Technical Institute in the 1950s and 1960s, and the foundations of modern linear accelerators were laid.
He carried out a large cycle of work in physical materials science and initiated the use of deep vacuum for creating new materials with high physico-chemical characteristics. In 1952 — 53, together with V. E. Ivanov, he was the first to build vacuum rolling mills and carried out studies on the rolling of beryllium, zirconium, uranium and other metals; he laid the physical foundations of vacuum metallurgy, in particular they proposed the method of vacuum distillation, first used in 1950 — 52 for the purification of beryllium. Together with V. F. Zelensky he discovered (early 1950s) the radiation growth of uranium.
He began thermonuclear research at the institute. He studied the confinement and heating of plasma in magnetic traps, the dynamics of plasma flows and clusters, and the injection of charged particles into magnetic traps. He proposed a trap with a spatially periodic magnetic field (the Sinelnikov trap).
He founded a school of physicists (V. E. Ivanov, Ya. B. Fainberg, V. F. Zelensky, V. T. Tolok, I. A. Grishaev, N. A. Khizhnyak, V. M. Amonenko, A. A. Kalmykov, V. G. Padalka, V. A. Suprunenko and others). For his outstanding work in physics the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR established the K. D. Sinelnikov Prize.