The Russian Federal Nuclear Centre – the National Research Institute of Experimental Physics is a federal state unitary enterprise of the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation Rosatom. It was founded in 1946 to implement a nuclear weapons project.
The first head of Design Bureau-11 was Deputy Minister of Transport Machine-Building Pavel Zernov and its chief designer Yuly Khariton. Most scientists, who worked at the bureau in its early years, were bright people with huge intellectual potential and creative imaginations. Igor Kurchatov, Yuly Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich, Andrei Sakharov, Nikolai Bogolyubov, Mikhail Lavrentyev, Igor Tamm, Georgy Flyorov, Yevgeny Negin, Samvel Kochariants, Alexander Pavlovsky, Yury Babayev, Samuil Kormer and other eminent physicists all worked at the institute.
In only a few years a high-technology industry was created aimed at solving the most complicated problems of the country's defence. DB-11 had become one of the industry's leading enterprises. On August 29, 1949 the country's first atom bomb was tested, followed by the first hydrogen bomb in 1953 and the first two-stage thermonuclear weapon in 1955. The institute developed dozens of nuclear and hydrogen explosives, which later became the foundation for the country's nuclear arsenal. The nuclear weapons, designed at the institute, ensured military parity with the United States.
The institute also laid the foundations for a large USSR programme to conduct peaceful nuclear explosions. In 1962, a unique task to ignite and burn hydrogen fuel without fissile materials was realised, which was an important step towards a hydrogen energy source.
In 1992, the Russian president granted the status of the Russian federal nuclear centre to the All-Union Research Institute of Experimental Physics.
The centre includes institutes, specialising in theoretical and mathematical physics, experimental gas dynamics and the physics of explosion, nuclear and radiation behaviour, the properties of lasers, as well as a technical research centre for high density energy physics and directed radiation flows. It also includes a design bureau and specialised centres all of which are managed by a common administration.
The nuclear centre currently employs over 18,000 people, including 6,000 under 35 years old. Among the employees are two members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, two associate members of the academy, 123 Doctors of Science, 467 PhDs and 20 professors.
The main activities of the nuclear centre are: maintaining the reliability and safety of the nuclear arsenal, developing and improving nuclear charges and weapons, and conventional weapons development.
The main activities are focused on presidential directives and the State Armaments Programme until 2015.
In 2011, the centre carried out projects based on the directives of the Russian president, the executive orders of the government and from the Rosatom State Corporation. Recent projects include the development and launch of a supercomputer with record processing capacity for Russia, the development and presentation to the State Commission of a new compact supercomputer with a processing capacity of 3TFlops, the realisation of key stages of the breakthrough project The Development of Supercomputers and Grid Technologies. A decision was also made to develop a unique special-purpose laser complex.
In 2011, it was decided to establish an innovation cluster in Sarov, based on the nuclear centre.
The centre is engaged in international cooperation. Its participation in international innovation and invention exhibitions in Geneva and Brussels in 2011 has again confirmed its image as an important research and technology centre. It received 11 gold, silver and bronze medals, 13 certificates and other special awards for its achievements.
A museum of nuclear weapons is opened at the centre.