Michael Fedorovich ZHUKOV
1917-1998

Professor Michael F. Zhukov was an outstanding and significant scientist. He was born on September 6th, 1917. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1941, majoring in "Mechanics". He started his creative work in 1941 as an engineer of Zhukovsky Central Aero-hydrodynamic Institute. From 1946 till 1959 he worked as the head of the department of Central Aircraft Motor Industry Institute. Since 1960 till his death he worked in the Siberian Department of Russian Academy of Sciences. His fundamental investigations in gas-dynamic and low-temperature plasma fields are widely known both in our country and abroad.

The scientific school of plasma-dynamics founded by the Academician Zhukov is widely known in Russian Federation and abroad. Michael F. Zhukov was the first person who made the complex experimental investigations of low-temperature plasma generators. He and his followers were first who studied and put into practice the series description of fundamental physical processes in electric-arc plasma who elaborated the system of similarity criteria and gave the estimation of their significance in specific conditions of arc burning. The theory of arc burning in the laminar flow was worked out. The developed engineering approach of calculation of electric and thermal characteristics of electric-arc plasma's generators is widely used in elaboration of research and in the industrial devices.

The cycle of systematic investigations created by Academician Michael F. Zhukov and his followers in the field of near-electrode processes, heat transfer through arc patches, "splitting" of locking radial portion of the arc in linear plasmatrons and burning stability of multiple-arc systems without ballast resistor in electric circuit allowed to create high-performance plasmatrones of linear circuit and high-current cathode assemblies which can continuously work in various gaseous media.

In the eighties, his intuition and foresight into the future became a determinative impulse in the formation of new scientific and technological line in the Siberian department of plasma-dynamics of dispersion. Later on, it encouraged the progress of the Department in the field of different high-tech technology of XXI century - plasma jet sputtering of powder coatings and composition materials of various functional applications.

New scientific line on the interaction of concentrated low-temperature plasma streams with building materials was formed under his direction in the Tomsk State University of Architecture and Building in the late seventies. It allowed creating qualitatively new technologies for the building industry.

Michael F. Zhukov was the author of many articles. The series of popular sketch-books of plasmatron constructions and a 20-volume serial "Low-temperature plasma" appeared under his edition and with his direct participation. Many of his published works have become handbooks for research personnel and experts on low-temperature plasma. These books serve as theoretical footing for planning and making high-performance equipment for up-to-date processes with the use of plasma.

Zhukov was a man of extensive interests. Besides his fundamental research in basic scientific directions, he was an organizer and active participant of all-union conferences and seminars on gas-discharge plasma regularly held over forty years.

He had been the Chief Scientist secretary of the Presidium of Siberian Department of Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1975 to 1980. He had been the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Proceedings of Siberian Department Of Academy of Sciences of the USSR" and member of drafting committee of the magazine "Contributions to Plasma Physics" for a long time. He was an academician of International Academy of Energy, Honorary Academician of Academy of Engineering Sciences. Merits of Michael Zhukov in the development of national science and education are marked by the state and academic awards and prizes.

The work of the section "Application of Low-temperature Plasma: Surface Modification, Plasmachemical, Electric-discharge and Other Technologies" is devoted to blessed memory of Michael F. Zhukov.