Leiden University
The Shubnikov's at the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory

photographs from the cited memoirs

Olga and Lev Shubnikov, with Wander de Haas at the center.

Lev and Olga Shubnikov worked at the Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory in the late 1920's, in the research group of Wander de Haas. Olga's memoirs from that period have been translated by Yaroslaw Bazaliy and give an interesting description of life in Leiden from a Soviet perspective. The Shubnikov-De Haas effect is still a widely used diagnostic in semiconductor physics. Lev Shubnikov went on to establish the first Soviet cryogenic laboratory in Kharkiv, where he discovered type-II superconductivity. His life took a tragic turn in the Stalin era, when he was falsely accused of treason and executed. [Read more in this biography (english) or in this news article (Dutch).]