Figures of the department

Over eight and a half decades the department has raised academicians and corresponding members, founded scientific schools and given optics dozens of lecturers and researchers. The heads of every generation – with portraits – are on the Department history page; here is the wider circle of the department’s people.

Scientific schools

Two research schools took shape at the department: “Spectroscopy of Disordered and Doped Condensed Systems”, founded by Mykhailo Bilyi, and Mykola Horban’s “Metal Optics and Surface Spectroellipsometry”. The department’s present research directions grew directly out of them – what we research today.

Academicians, corresponding members, professors

Graduates and lecturers of the department have become academicians, heads of institutes and departments of the NAS of Ukraine, and authors of well-known textbooks.

Mykhailo LysytsiaAcademician of the NAS of Ukraine (1921–2012). Headed the optics department of the Institute of Semiconductor Physics; discovered the combined Fermi–Davydov resonance and trained 68 candidates and 24 doctors of science.

Ivan KondylenkoCorresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, an expert in Raman spectroscopy.

Marat SoskinCorresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine, professor, Institute of Physics of the NAS of Ukraine.

Mykhailo ValakhCorresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine, deputy director of the Institute of Semiconductor Physics.

Mykhailo BondarCorresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine, director of the Institute of Physics of the NAS of Ukraine.

Borys OkhrimenkoProfessor, co-author of the textbook “Atomic Physics” together with Mykhailo Bilyi.

Galyna DovbeshkoDoctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, head of a department at the Institute of Physics of the NAS of Ukraine.

Oleksandr StronskyiDoctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, head of a department at the Institute of Semiconductor Physics.

Valerii SkryshevskyiProfessor, Institute of High Technologies, KNU.

Serhii NedilkoDoctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, head of the “Condensed Matter Spectroscopy” laboratory of the Faculty of Physics.

Nataliia AtamasDoctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Physics, KNU.

Olena Shymanska (1927–2024)Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, a researcher of critical phenomena: the first to obtain the coexistence curve equation for benzene from the triple point to the critical point. She taught at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy until the age of 95.

Ivan Kushnirenko and Oleh VakulenkoProfessors of the department, authors of optics courses and practicums; Vakulenko co-authored the handbook “Luminescence of Semiconductors” (2011).

Yurii Pervak – Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, professor, a 1973 graduate of the Faculty of Physics; in 1973–1976 a doctoral student and junior researcher at the university. He worked at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute in Moscow (1977–1982) and the Institute of Semiconductor Physics of the NAS of Ukraine (1982–2002); from 2002 – professor at the semiconductor electronics department of the KNU Faculty of Radiophysics.

The people who built the department

The generation that created the department’s teaching base and research directions in the post-war decades.

Mykola Horban (1920–1979)Associate professor, a 1947 graduate of the department, doctoral student of the Vavilov State Optical Institute. In 1956 he founded the department’s “Metal Optics” direction, from which the school of metal optics and surface spectroellipsometry grew. He taught atomic spectroscopy, optical system design and spectroscopy technique.

Oleksii Borbat (1919–2004)Associate professor, an applied spectroscopy expert, a 1941 graduate of the department. He created the spectral laboratory at the Kyiv motorcycle plant – the first in the network of factory spectral laboratories initiated by the department. He invented quantitative spectral analysis without accompanying standards; co-authored the school textbook “Optics and Its Applications” and educational films on optics.

Mykola Tsvelykh (1923–2011)Associate professor; in 1941–1945 a tank crewman, twice wounded at the front. He studied the optical properties of thin semiconductor films – selenium, germanium, silicon, tellurium. In 1963–1968 – deputy dean of the Faculty of Physics.

Valentyna Avramenko (1931–2007)Senior lecturer, the department’s academic secretary for many years. She studied the luminescence of aqueous thallium solutions; together with Mykhailo Bilyi she developed a spectro-absorption method for monitoring vitamin synthesis.

Extended biographies are collected in the jubilee volume for the department’s 75th anniversary (SPO-2014 conference proceedings, part II). The history by dates is on the Department history page.