National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute

The Kurchatov Institute (, 'National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute) is Russia's leading research and development institution in the field of nuclear energy. It is named after Igor Kurchatov and is located at 1 Kurchatov Square, Moscow. In the Soviet Union it was known as I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, abbreviated KIAE. Between 1991 and 2010, it was known as the Russian Scientific Centre "Kurchatov Institute" before its name was changed to National Research Centre. History Until 1955 known under a secret name "Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences", the Kurchatov Institute was founded in 1943 with the initial purpose of developing nuclear weapons. The majority of Soviet nuclear reactors were designed in the institute, including the on-site F-1, which was the first nuclear reactor outside North America to sustain criticality. Since 1955 it was also the host for major scientific experimental work in the fields of thermonuclear fusion and plasma physics. In particular, the first tokamak systems were developed there, the most successful of them being T-3 and its larger version T-4. T-4 was tested in 1968 in Novosibirsk, conducting the first quasistationary thermonuclear fusion reaction ever.