Director of the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Professor Sergey Nikolaevich Dmitriev turnes 65 on 17 January 2019.

Scientific activities of Sergey Nikolaevich started in 1977 when he started his post-graduate education in the Dmitry Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology (now the Dmitry Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia). In 1980, after defense of the Candidate’s thesis, S.N. Dmitriev was invited for a position in the Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions JINR.

Thanks to his profound knowledge of the behaviour of the trace amount of chemical elements in various systems, S.N. Dmitriev developed semi-industrial methods for concentration of hypothetic superheavy elements thus concluding an important stage of search for them in nature.

In the 1980-1990s, Sergey Nikolaevich successfully solved the task of producing a range of unique isotope-ultrapure samples of radionuclides in JINR in order to apply them in biomedical, radiochemical and ecological research. The quality of obtained samples is still unbeaten.

Professor Dmitriev is one of leaders of work on the synthesis of superheavy elements of the Mendeleev’s Periodic Table with atomic numbers 113 – 118. Since the 2000s, since the beginning of implementation at FLNR of the programme on the synthesis of superheavy elements in reactions with Calcium-48, Sergey Nikolaevich has been the head of the study of physical and chemical properties of new elements. He established wide cooperation with colleagues from world-leading scientific centres.

Under the supervision of S.N. Dmitriev, a set of unique experiments on chemical identification and study of properties of a number of transactinides was carried out. Experiments conducted in Dubna resonated widely in the world and allowed establishing a new scientific field – relativistic chemistry of superheavy elements. Moreover, they provided an independent proof of synthesis of new elements of the Mendeleev’s Periodic Table and became a strong argument for acknowledgement of the JINR priority in their discovery. The further development of this research, including synthesis of new chemical elements with atomic numbers 119 and 120, is connected with development of a new accelerator complex in FLNR, namely the first in the world Factory of superheavy elements.

Scientific interests of Sergey Nikolaevich include search of possible applications of new technologies developed in FLNR for solving fundamental scientific problems. On the initiative of S.N. Dmitriev, the Centre of Applied Nuclear Physics was established in FLNR where processes of interaction of ions with condensed matter are studied. A crucially important result of this work was development of unique technologies in FLNR and organization of semi-industrial production of track membranes, micro- and nanosized structures.

S.N. Dmitriev is an active member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), member of the editorial board of the journal “Radiochemistry”, author and coauthor of more than 280 scientific papers and 25 inventions. His scientific papers have repeatedly won prizes of JINR competitions; he is a laureate of the Flerov International Prize (2007), Khlopin RAS Prize (2013), he was awarded the Medal of the Order “For the Merit to the Fatherland”, 1st class (2018).

S.N. Dmitriev celebrates his jubilee at the height of his creative powers. He has plenty of new plans: launch of the Factory of superheavy elements and start of the implementation of its experimental programme, construction of new experimental facilities and conducting of precision experiments. The programme of the strategic development of FLNR until 2030 is being drafted.

We cordially congratulate Sergey Nikolaevich Dmitriev on his jubilee! We wish him good health, success, happiness and prosperity.

JINR Directorate, FLNR Directorate, friends and colleagues