Alpik Rafael Mkrtchyan

Academician of the NAS RA, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor Alpik Rafaelovich Mkrtchyan – organizer, first and permanent director of the Institute of Applied Problems of Physics of the NAS RA from 1980 to 2006, and since 2006 – its Scientific Director, foreign member of the Engineering Academy of Sciences named after A.S. Prokhorov (2007), honored inventor (1984), honored scientist of the Republic of Armenia (2007). He was awarded the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” 1st degree (May 17, 2017), gold medals of the Ministry of Higher Education and Science of Armenia (2012), Yerevan State University (2012), Yerevan Polytechnic University (2012), gold medals named after Yu.A. Gagarin (2008), named after N.N. Semenov (2011), named after Alexander Ivanovich Berg (2012) (A.S. Prokhorov Engineering Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation), named after St. George the Victorious (2012), Surb Kazanchentsots Amenaprkich (2012), the I.V. Kurchatov (1978) (I.V. Kurchatov Institute), the jubilee medal of the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians Vazgen I (1980) for services to the Armenian people, the Anania Shirakatsi medal (2003), the silver medal named after Davit Anhaght (2008), gold and silver medals of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements and diplomas of international exhibitions, the Badge of Honor, for his efforts at the 7th International Conference “Charged & Neutral Particles Channeling Phenomena Channeling 2016” he was recognized as the author of the creation of new types of X-ray sources and optics., Laureate of the A.S. Prokhorov Prize (2009), member of the editorial board of the journal “Journal of Contemporary Physics”, series “Physics”, 1983-2011 Chairman of the Specialized Council of the IAPP NAS of the Republic of Armenia for the defense of candidate and doctoral dissertations in the specialties “Physics of Condensed Matter”, “Plasma Physics” and “Acoustics”.

Based on the results of fundamental research by Academician A.R. Mkrtchyan and his colleagues, a new scientific direction was formed – Acoustophysics with three sections: modulation Mössbauer spectroscopy, modulation spectroscopy of angstrom wavelengths and control of cold plasma parameters by acoustic waves with numerous applications. The scientific level of these studies earned high praise from Nobel laureate R.L. Messbauer. The creator of the gamma-resonance spectroscopy method described the results obtained by representatives of Mkrtchyan’s scientific school as follows: “After the discovery of the phenomenon of resonant absorption of gamma quanta by nuclei, it would be very important for me to solve the inverse problem of this phenomenon, which was done by the Yerevan group of scientists.”

The main areas of fundamental research of A.R. Mkrtchyan are the study of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation (Mössbauer, X-ray, synchrotron, optical, microwave) and elementary particles with solids in the presence of external influences (acoustic waves, electromagnetic fields and themperature gradient); Control of low-temperature plasma characteristics using acoustic fields; Study of influence of external acoustic, electromagnetic and thermal fields on physical, electrophysical and contact properties of materials; Acoustics and acoustophysics; Synthesizing new materials and studying their structural, spectroscopic, resistive and photoelectric properties; Scientific instrumentation.

Prof. A.R. Mkrtchyan is the author of more than 300 scientific articles, as well as more than 20 copyright certificates for inventions and patents. A.R. Mkrtchyan paid great attention to the training of personnel. Throughout his career, he has supervised to approximately 50 PhD and 18 DrSc degree holders.

Academician A.R. Mkrtchyan, until the end of his life, while fighting illness, enthusiastically organized international conferences and led scientific research at the institute, and in 2019, during the international conference “Electron, Positron, Neutron and X-Ray Scattering under External Influences” that he organized, he died.

After his death, a few years ago the staff of the IAPP NAS RA decided to hold a scientific school named after Alpik Mkrtchyan. It was first organized from June, 2022 in Sevan (his homeland) and was dedicated to the field of “acoustophysics”. It immediately aroused wide interest among the international scientific community and young scientists working in the field of acoustics. For the first time, it was organized only in the format of a school and was attended by about two dozen scientists and more than fifty students from five countries. Immediately after the end of that school, various international scientific centers and individual scientists expressed their desire to participate in the school to be organized in the future both as lecturers and as organizers. Taking into account the strong interest of the scientific community, it was decided to expand the format of the school,during which renowned scientists in the fields of radiation physics, condensed matter physics, acoustic physics and materials science will give lectures on current trends in the mentioned field, and young scientists will present their new scientific results. The materials of the 2023 https://iopscience.iop.org/issue/1742-6596/2657/1 and 2024 https://iopscience.iop.org/issue/1742-6596/2924/1 School-Conference were published in special issues of the “Journal of Physics: Conference Series”.