About Laboratory

Laboratory Head: Corresponding Member of RAS, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Professor
Rempel Andrei Andreyevich
Phone: (343) 374-73-06
E-mail:

Laboratory staff: 13 employees, among them 1 Corresponding Member of RAS, 1 Doctor of Chemistry and 7 hold PhD degrees.

The Laboratory of nonstoichiometric compounds was created in 2009 on the basis of the Laboratory of refractory compounds, which existed since 1963. In the period from 1963 to 1996, the Laboratory was headed by Acad. G. P. Shveikin, and from 1996 to 2008 the head of the Laboratory was Prof. A .I. Gusev. Since 1960-ies, along with synthesis of various compounds of refractory metals with carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, investigations into their electric, magnetic, thermodynamic, and mechanical properties, as well as theoretical studies of the electronic structure and chemical bonding in refractory compounds have been carried out in the Laboratory. Comprehensive research of refractory compounds of transition metals made the Laboratory one of the country’s leading scientific teams working in this direction. Since 1980, theoretical and experimental studies of nonstoichiometry, disorder and order phenomena in various systems with atomic substitution (nonstoichiometric carbides, nitrides, oxides and their solid solutions, intermetallics, alloys, manganites, cobaltites, and other ternary oxide compounds of lithium with transition metals) have been performed in the Laboratory by A.I. Gusev and A.A. Rempel. Numerous manifestations of atomic-vacancy ordering in nonstoichiometric compounds have been found experimentally. It was established that the effects of nonstoichiometry and ordering on the properties of nonstoichiometric compounds are comparable in value. It was shown that variation of the composition of strongly nonstoichiometric compounds and redistribution of atoms and vacancies in their crystal lattice are two equivalent methods for controlling the properties of these substances. Methods for calculation of phase diagrams of binary and more complex systems with allowance for nonstoichiometry and ordering have been elaborated. More than thirty phase diagrams have been calculated and constructed which were included in international reference books and database directories. At present, the investigations into nonstoichiometry, disorder, and order represent the basic fundamental scientific area of focus of the Laboratory of nonstoichiometric compounds, which occupies a leading position in this field of research both in this country and abroad. The phenomena of disorder, order, and nonstoichiometry in solid state, disorder-order phase transformations were the subject of eight domestic and foreign monographs, tens of reviews and hundreds of articles, six PhD and two Doctor of Science theses defended by the researchers of the Laboratory. In 2007, a fundamental monograph of A.I. Gusev Non-stoichiometry, Disorder, Short-Range and Long-Range Order in Solid State, 856 pages, devoted to this topic was published by Nauka Fizmatlit Publishers (Moscow). Since 1992 the researchers of the Laboratory have been engaged in obtaining nanocrystalline substances and compounds using methods of ordering, intensive plastic deformation, deposition from colloid solutions, zol-gel technologies, and studied their structure and properties. In 1998, A.I. Gusev published the world’s first monograph devoted to nanostate Nanocrystalline Materials: Methods of Production and Properties. In 2000 and 2001, the monograph of A.I. Gusev and A.A. Rempel Nanocrystalline Materials was published and republished by Fizmatlit Publishers (Moscow). In 2004, the monograph of A.I. Gusev and A.A. Rempel Nanocrystalline Materials was published in Cambridge. The monograph of A.I. Gusev Nanomaterials, Nanostructures, Nanotechnologies was published in 2005 and 2007. At present, research into nanocrystalline carbides, sulfides, metals, and alloys is being carried out under the guidance of Prof. A.A. Rempel. Owing to original experimental studies of nanocrystalline metals, carbides, oxides, sulfides and important generalizations made in review articles and books, the team involved in this research is now among the leaders in the national science of nanostate of solids. Since January 2009 Prof. A.A. Rempel is the Head of the Laboratory of nonstoichiometric compounds.