Rudolf Zinovievich Levitin, a distinguished scientist in the field of magnetism and a professor of physics at Moscow State University, died on 26 February 2004 in Moscow of a heart attack.
Levitin was born in Kharkov in the Soviet Union on 5 May 1928. In 1951, he graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in physics; he remained closely connected to the university until his death. Under the supervision of Konstantin Petrovich Belov, he received his PhD there in 1962 for his research on magnetoelastic properties of some antiferromagnets and rare-earth metals.
Immediately after earning his doctorate, Levitin was elected a junior researcher of the chair of general physics for the natural sciences department. Two years later, he was named a senior researcher, and he held that post until he was appointed a leading researcher in 1987.
Levitin and Belov were among the founders, in 1964, of the physics department’s Problem Laboratory for Magnetism, now one of the main centers in Russia for studies of solid-state magnetism. In 1972, Levitin completed his second dissertation, entitled “Investigation of Magnetic and Magnetoelastic Properties of Some Ferro-, Ferri- and Antiferromagnets in High Magnetic Fields.”
A talented and bright man, Levitin carried out research that covered a wide range of problems involving magnetism of lanthanide and actinide compounds. He could deeply penetrate into the physics of phenomena and was able to clearly formulate the aim of an experiment and relate the results plainly. His work, which elucidated the nature of magnetism and of spontaneous and field-induced magnetic phase transitions in rare-earth compounds, created a basis for the theory of magnetic phase transitions,
Levitin wrote what are now classic papers on the weak ferromagnetism in hematite and on the spin-reorientation phase transitions in rare-earth iron garnets in strong pulsed magnetic fields. In 1959, he found and later systematically studied magnetostriction and other magnetoelastic effects in 3d and 4f antiferromagnets. Together with his colleagues in 1961, he discovered giant magnetostriction in lanthanide and actinide compounds, explained the nature of giant magnetostriction and its connection to the electronic structure of the given 4f or 5f ion, and suggested possible technical applications of that new phenomenon. Levitin found a number of new effects in 3d–4f intermetallic compounds that resulted from magnetic instability created because of peculiar densities of states near the Fermi level. Those effects included itinerant metamagnetism, thermally induced metamagnetism, and a large increase in the Curie temperature under a nonmagnetic dilution of the 3d sublattice.
Research topics that caught Levitin’s attention in the late 1990s and early 2000s were the properties of low-dimensional magnetic systems, particularly quasi-one-dimensional Haldane-gap compounds, which he investigated in collaboration with optical spectroscopists, and spin-Peierls and other magnetostructural transitions, systems with different magnetic instabilities, magnets that exhibit memory of shape, and complex multisublattice magnets. He established vast and fruitful scientific contacts with colleagues from other institutions in Russia and from leading scientific centers in the Czech Republic, Poland, France, the Netherlands, and Japan.
Levitin summarized his research in three books, Rare-Earth Ferromagnets and Antiferromagnets (Nauka, 1965), Physics of Magnetic Materials and New Rare-Earth Magnets (Znanie, 1976), and Spin-Orientation Transitions in Rare-Earth Magnets (Nauka, 1979), and in a series of fundamental review papers.
A brilliant lecturer, Levitin also supervised numerous PhD students and established a school of well-known magnetophysicists. He was approachable, ready to discuss any scientific problem in a friendly manner. One of the main organizers of the Moscow Seminar on Magnetism, Levitin remained an active participant until his last days. He participated on the program committees of all the conferences on magnetism in the Soviet Union and Russia, and had been a member of the Bureau of the Academic Council on Magnetism since 1988.
In 1984, Levitin was awarded the USSR State Prize for his work on magnetism of 4f and 5f compounds. He shared that honor with his colleagues in the Problem Laboratory for Magnetism and in several research institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Levitin’s understanding of solid-state physics was deep and broad. He possessed a youthful spirit and was always open to new ideas. The day before he died, he enthusiastically discussed the paper he was writing on magnetic properties of new ferroborate crystals. Levitin was widely respected and loved in the physics community for his professionalism, his devotion to science, and his personal qualities of kindness, modesty, cheerfulness, natural affinity for people, and total absence of self-promotion. He is sorely missed by his family, friends, the scientific community, and others who knew him.
