Bentsion Moiseyevich Vul (born 22.05.1903) is a Soviet physicist and an academician (1972; corresponding member 1939). He was born in Belaya Tserkov. He graduated from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute (1928). Since 1932 he has worked at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (head of a laboratory from 1933).
His research concerned the physics of dielectrics and semiconductors. He studied the electric strength of dielectrics, discovered a new form of breakdown of a dielectric (successive breakdown) and studied electric discharges in gases in uniform and nonuniform fields at various pressures. He studied solid dielectrics with a high permittivity and the phenomena occurring in dielectrics under intense gamma irradiation, establishing the main regularities of the change in the electrical conductivity of dielectrics under the action of gamma radiation. He discovered and studied the ferroelectric properties of barium titanate (1944), and so began a new class of dielectrics that are widely used in present-day technology (USSR State Prize, 1946).
In 1948 he began research on semiconductor physics. Under Vul's direction the development of the first semiconductor diodes, transistors and solar cells in the USSR was begun. Further research on photoelectric phenomena led to the creation of the silicon photocells of solar batteries. He created the diffusion transistor and proposed using p-n junctions in semiconductors as nonlinear capacitors. With Vul's direct participation the first semiconductor lasers in the USSR were built (1963) (Lenin Prize, 1964).
Hero of Socialist Labour (1969).