The Laboratory for Metal Physics was established on November 15, 1945 by the Academy of Sciences of UkrSSR. Ten years later, on March 9, 1955, the Laboratory was reorganized into the Institute for Metal Physics.
The mainstreams of its research activities are:
- physics of strength and plasticity of metals and alloys;
- electronic structure and properties of metals and metal-based compounds;
- nanoscale systems;
- atomic structure of metals and metal-based heterophase systems.
The most important achievements of the Institute’s scientists involve two discoveries: ‘Non-oxiditative property of elementary substances in ultra-disperse form, placed on the surfaces of space bodies’ (V. V. Nemoshkalenko et al., № 219, 1982) and the ‘The phenomenon of thermoelastic phase equilibrium in martensitic phase transformations’, known as Kurdyumov effect (G. V. Kurdyumov, L. G. Handos, № 239, 1982). Besides, Institute’s researchers have made a major contribution to the development of physical fundamentals of deformation and thermal strengthening of Fe-, Ti- and Cr-based metallic construction materials, as well as to improving performance characteristics of functional materials, shape-memory alloys, superconductors, ribbons and thin-film materials in particular.
Recently, the main focus of the Institute’s activities has been on research into physical fundamentals of the technologies for producing nanomaterials of various types: amorphous and nanocrystalline systems, highly dispersive metallic and metal-oxide powders, single- and multilayered nanofilms of polymer-based composites, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes, nanomaterials intended for medicine and biology, and nanostructured coatings for construction materials.
Among the applied-research achievements of the last decade, one should mention the development of novel metallic materials (high-nitrogen steels; steels resistant to hydrogen embrittlement; titanium alloys doped with low-cost elements available in Ukraine; high temperature shape-memory intermetallics; magnetic shape-memory alloys and nanocrystalline structured alloys based on FeB, intended for magnetic cores), as well as technological processes aimed at improving performace characteristics and lowering the cost of metallic materials and products (e.g., ultrafast electrothermal treatment of special steels and titanium alloys, synthesis of titanium alloys from titanium hydride powders, rapid liquid-state quenching, high-energy methods of surface treatment etc.,).