Galanin Mikhail Dmitrievich

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Mikhail Dmitrievich Galanin (7.02.1915 - 3.05.2008)

Mikhail Dmitrievich Galanin, an outstanding scientist, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Honoured Scientist of the Russian Federation, died on 3 May 2008. M.D. Galanin was the head of the Russian school of luminescence, a closest pupil, and successor of the founder of this school academician S.I. Vavilov. The fundamental studies of M.D. Galanin in the éelds of luminescence, laser physics, and nonlinear optics are well known in our country and abroad.

Mikhail Dmitrievich Galanin was born on 7 February 1915 in Moscow. After graduating in optics from the Department of physics of Moscow State University in 1938, he went to Lebedev Physics Institute, RAS, where he defended his master degree under the supervision of S.M. Rytov and started to work in June 1938. From this time and till his last days, all the scientific life of M.D. Galanin is connected with FIAN. In September 1939 he was admitted to graduate school at FIAN, but already in November of that year, he was called up for military service in the Red Army. M.D. Galanin took part in the Great Patriotic War, serving in communication units, and had war decorations. In September 1945 Mikhail Dmitrievich returns to graduate school at FIAN and in 1948 he defends his Ph.D. thesis. His scientific supervisor was S.I. Vavilov. From 1963 to 1988 M.D. Galanin was the head of the Laboratory of Luminescence at FIAN and from 1970 to 1987 he was the Chairman of the Scientiéc Council on the problem Luminescence and the Development of Its Applications in the National Economy. In 1976 M.D. Galanin was awarded the gold S. I. Vavilov medal and in 2001 - the P. N. Lebedev gold medal.

The investigations of electronic energy transfer in condensed media performed by M.D. Galanin brought him the scientiéc authority in Russian physics and then the worldwide fame. The results of theoretical interpretations of comprehensive and sophisticated experimental data carried out by M.D. Galanin formed the basis of the general theory of electronic energy transfer in condensed media (the Förster-Dexter-Galanin theory). This theory is successfully used in solid-state physics, photochemistry, molecular biology and other scientific fields. In 1978 a monograph of M. D. Galanin (together with V. M. Agranovich) `Electronic excitation energy transfer in condensed media' was published.

In the 1950th M. D. Galanin with collaborators performed a series of studies devoted to radioluminescence. The results obtained in these works had a large practical significance and were used for the development of highly efficient scintillators.

In September 1961 the group of M. D. Galanin obtained lasing in ruby, and the first publications in our country on the study of a ruby laser belong to Mikhail Dmitrievich and his collaborators. He was the first in our country who began to use lasers, in particular, picosecond lasers for luminescent studies. M.D. Galanin discovered two-photon dichroism in liquids, luminescence quenching by intense light fluxes, anti-Stokes Raman scattering by the electronic levels of dye molecules, and a number of other effects.

From 1948 to 1969 M. D. Galanin was a teacher at the Chair of General Physics at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and then, from 1969 to 1989, he was the Head of the Chair of Quantum Radiophysics at MIPhT. The students of Mikhail Dmitrievich at MIPhT will remember him for many years. The book of M. D. Galanin `Luminescence of molecules and crystals' published in 1999 in which the fundamentals of luminescence are presented is addressed to students. This book became worldwide known and was highly estimated by researchers.

M. D. Galanin was an innate experimenter. He always boldly and with interest adopted new experimental methods and had a great scientific authority both in our country and abroad. However, he had only slightly more than a hundred of papers, which is quite natural for an experimental physicist who himself performed experiments and had simultaneously the time for teaching and science organization activity. Mikhail Dmitrievich was a modest and exacting man who was always friendly to people independent of their status. He was a real intelligent in the highest sense of this word used in Russia. Being the head of a large scientific laboratory for many years, M.D. Galanin never was `simply' a chief and was always accessible to all collaborators and students.

For many years M. D. Galanin was a member of the editorial councils of Quantum Electronics and Applied Spectroscopy.

Mikhail Dmitrievich will always remain in the memory of his pupils and collaborators.