Research Nuclear Reactor Department

(Head – Dr. Sci. V. I. Slisenko)

Main directions of scientific activity: 

• Scientific and technical support of the research nuclear reactor operation.
• Investigations of the low-energy excitations in the matter condensed state (oscillations of the atoms and molecules, diffusion of the atoms and molecules, effects of the crystal electric field in the compounds of rare earth elements) by means of the slow neuron spectroscopy.
• Investigations of the fissionable nuclei by means of the multiplicity spectrometry.
• Elaboration of the radiation technologies including the production of radioactive isotopes.
• Elaboration of the methods for the determination of fissionable radioactive substances.

The most important scientific results:

• Stable operation of the research nuclear reactor WWR-M at established power of 10 MW.
• Methods of inelastic and quasi-elastic paramagnetic scattering of the slow neurons were developed, which are the most effective methods for the investigations of the magnetic properties of rare earth compounds. The effects of the crystal electric field in the orthorhombic compounds of praseodymium, neodymium and cerium with aluminium caused by the magnetic dipole transitions between the energy levels of split main multiplet in the rare earth ion were investigated. It was founded for the orthorhombic compounds of praseodymium with aluminium that the main role in the formation of magnetic moment is played by the first exited energy level of main multiplet of the praseodymium’s ion (so called induced magnetic moment), while for the concentrated condos systems the effect of the thermal shift for the energy levels of main multiplet of cerium’s ion was founded for the first time.
• Methods with application of neutron spectroscopy were created and improved for the investigations of soft substance in the wide range – from the ion, molecule and micellar solutions to the gels and solid compounds on the basis of domestic equipment. The approaches for the interpretation of the neutron spectrometry data, which were elaborated and implemented at the research nuclear reactor of INR NASU, allow the investigation of the molecular-dynamical state of soft substance and the determination of one of the actual current scientific problem concerning the relation between the processes in the system at the micro level with the properties of these systems at the macro level.
• Characteristics of the molecular-dynamical state were established for the solutions of electrolytes, a number of molecular solutions of simple and complex organic compounds (spirits, non-ion and cation surface-active substances). On the basis of quantitative characteristics of the molecular-dynamical state it was established the specific peculiarities for the performance of some processes at the micro level: micelle formation, gel formation, complex formation etc. Formation of the layers due to the adsorption of surface-active substances from the water solutions on the solid sorbents was investigated.
• Methods of non-destructive control for fissionable nuclei was developed on the basis both the nuclear research reactor WWR-M and accelerators U-120 and U-240.