Yakov Frenkel
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Yakov Il'ich Frenkel, Russian: Яков Ильич Френкель (February 10, 1894, Rostov-on-Don – January 23, 1952, St. Petersburg) was a Russian physist renown for his works in the field of Solid-state physics. He is also known as Jacov Frenkel.
He was born in a Jewish family in Rostov on Don on February 10, 1894. He entered St. Petersburg University in 1910. Frenkel graduated from the university in 3 years and remained there to prepare for a professorship. In 1912 he finished his first work in physics on the Earth Magnetism and atmospheric electricity. This work attracted Abram Ioffe's attention and later turned into collaboration.
From 1921 till the end of his life, Frenkel worked at the Physico-Technical Institute. When conducting research on the molecular theory of condensed state, he introduced the notion of the hole, and the Frenkel defect was firmly fixed in the physics of solids and liquids. In the thirties, his research was supplemented with works on the theory of plastic deformation. His theory is now known as the Frenkel-Kontorova model, which is important for the study of dislocations. For his distinguished scientific services, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1929.
The results of his more than twenty years of study of the theory of liquid state were generalized in the classic monograph "Kinetic theory of liquids". In 1930-1931, Frenkel showed that neutral excitation of a crystal by light is possible, with an electron remaining bound to a hole created at a lattice site identified as a quasi-particle — the exciton. Mention should be made of Frenkel's works on the theory of metals, nuclear physics (the liquid drop model of the nucleus), semiconductors. Frenkel's book-writing activity was extremely high. Beginning in 1922, he published a book virtually every year: he was the author of the first theoretical course in the USSR. Many students learned physics from these books, not only in USSR but also in other countries.
He has contributed to semiconductor and insulator physics by proposing the Poole-Frenkel effect in 1938. "Poole" refers to Horace H. Poole, Ireland. There was actually not much physics from Poole and the physics of the Poole-Frenkel effect basically came from Frenkel. The Poole-Frenkel effect is something like an internal Schottky effect. (Ref.: J. Frenkel, "On pre-breakdown phenomena in insulators and electronic semi-conductors", Phys.Rev., vol. 54, pp. 647-648, 1938. Note: Yakov Frenkel quite frequently put down his name as J. Frenkel when he published his papers in journals using the English language.)
His son, Victor Ya. Frenkel, has written a book "Yakov Ilich Frenkel: His work, life and letters" on his life. This book, originally written in Russian, has been translated to English.
