Abrikosov was born inMoscow,Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, on June 25, 1928, to a couple ofphysicians:Aleksey Abrikosov and Fani (née Wulf). His mother wasJewish.[9] After graduating from high school in 1943, Abrikosov began studying energy technology. He graduated fromMoscow State University in 1948. From 1948 to 1965, he worked at the Institute for Physical Problems of theUSSR Academy of Sciences, where he received his Ph.D. in 1951 for the theory of thermal diffusion inplasmas, and then hisDoctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (a "higher doctorate") degree in 1955 for a thesis onquantum electrodynamics at high energies. Abrikosov moved to the US in 1991 and lived there until his death in 2017, in Palo Alto, California. While in the US, Abrikosov was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and in 2001, to be a foreign member of theRoyal Society.[3][10]
From 1991 until his retirement, he worked atArgonne National Laboratory in the U.S. state ofIllinois. Abrikosov was an Argonne Distinguished Scientist at the Condensed Matter Theory Group in Argonne's Materials Science Division. When he received the Nobel Prize, his research was focused on the origins of magnetoresistance, a property of some materials that change their resistance to electrical flow under the influence of a magnetic field.[12][13][14][15][16]
Abrikosov was awarded theLenin Prize in 1966, theFritz London Memorial Prize in 1972, and theUSSR State Prize in 1982. In 1989 he received the Landau Prize from the Academy of Sciences, Russia.[citation needed] Two years later, in 1991, Abrikosov was awarded the Sony Corporation's John Bardeen Award. The same year he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[17] He shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was also a member of the Royal Academy of London, a fellow of the American Physical Society, and in 2000 was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.[1] Other awards include:
Abrikosov was the son of the physiciansAlexei Ivanovich Abrikosov (1875-1955) and his second wife, Fania Davidovna Woolf (1895—1965). Through his father, Abrikosov was the nephew of the martyred Catholic nunAnna Abrikosova (1882-1936).
His sister was Maria Alekseevna Abrikósova (1929-1998), physician.
He married Svetlana Yuriyevna Bunkova and had 3 children.[6][3]
He died inCalifornia on 29 March 2017 at the age of 88.[19]
