I. P. Shkarofsky

ISSIE P. SHKAROFSKY, M.Sc., Ph.D. (McGill)

Issie P. Shkarofsky graduated in 1952 from McGill University,
Montreal with a B.Sc. degree and first class honours in physics
and mathematics. In the following year, 1953, he obtained his
M.Sc. degree, conducting his research at the Eaton Electronics
Research Laboratory, McGill University, in the fields of microwave
optics and antennas. He then joined the microwave tube and noise
group at the same laboratory and received his Ph.D. degree in 1957
with a thesis on modulated electron beams in space-charge-wave
tubes and klystrons. After graduation, he joined the Research
Laboratories of RCA Limited, Montreal, where he participated in
research on microwave diffraction, millimeter waves, obstacle
gain, laser applications, electromagnetic wave interaction with
plasmas, plasma kinetics and theory, plasmas in space and fusion
studies. From 1973 until 1977, his position was R&D Fellow at the
RCA Research and Development Laboratories. At the start of 1977,
he joined MPB Technologies Inc. as a R&D Fellow. In 1988, he was
appointed Director of the Fusion Technology Division at MPB
Technologies Inc. At MPB Technologies, he conducted research in
the fields of plasmas, tokamak and laser fusion, electromagnetic
theory and propagation, electron devices, radar and WISP shuttle
experiments. He directed the MPBT fusion group working at the
Tokamak de Varennes during its existence. Thereafter, he worked on
laser fiber amplifiers. He is presently a research fellow emeritus
at MPBT, after retirement in 2002.

In the field of plasma and space studies, his particular interest
has been in the following topics: plasma transport coefficients,
collisional effects in plasmas (slightly, partially and strongly
ionized), Boltzmann and Fokker-Planck theory and appropriate
expansions, bremsstrahlung, magneto-hydrodynamics, re-entry plasma
physics, generalized Appleton-Hartree equation for the ionosphere,
laboratory simulation of geophysical phenomena such as the solar
wind interaction with the magnetosphere and sheaths around
satellites, strong em waves near plasma resonances, cyclotron
harmonic resonances and dispersion including weakly relativistic
effects, dielectric tensor elements for relativistic and slightly
relativistic plasmas, diagnostics of plasmas by laser scattering,
nonlinear mixing of plasma modes, Langmuir probes on satellites,
VLF sheath admittance of antennas in the ionosphere, spacecraft
charging/arcing/radiation, kinetics of beams in crossed-field
microwave tubes, injection mode locking of a TEA laser, high power
laser interaction with matter including laser gas breakdown, probe
diagnostics of anisotropic laser plasmas, laser energy absorption
and transport, such as the relation of hot electrons to the heat
flux limit and ponderomotive corrections to transport in laser
fusion, and a review of laser fusion projects for Canada.
In the area of turbulence, he investigated radar scattering from
turbulent plasmas, laser propagation through a turbulent
atmosphere, microwave propagation through a turbulent plasma,
hydrodynamic flow turbulence, arc turbulence, and radar scattering
from chaff.

In the field of em propagation, attention was focused on the
relationship in satellite communications between rain attenuation
and depolarization, site diversity studies for rain attenuation,
the problems of depolarization due to imperfect antenna effects,
due to rain and due to atmospheric multipath refraction in radio
links, polarization tracking to compensate rain depolarization,
multipath ray tracing, the functional objectives for plasma
experiments using a WISP system on a shuttle, and a survey of
radar clutter for a space based radar system.

In 1973, he became a co-leader of the Task Force on Toroidal
Machines for Fusion Canada, which ultimately led to the Tokamak de
Varennes project. His most recent efforts in tokamak fusion were
directed towards transport in toroidal geometry, magnetic probes
to diagnose the current density moments, computer programs for
current rampdown giving 2-dimensional contours of current density
and poloidal flux, codes with transport covering the neo-classical
to banana regime to simulate the current plateau and rampdown,
codes for electron cyclotron and for lower hybrid heating and
associated ray tracing in toroidal geometry, the Fokker-Planck and
quasi-linear operators and various codes for lower-hybrid current
drive, and the TSC equilibrium simulation code applied to the
Tokamak de Varennes. Early, well-known contributions
were a book on plasma kinetics and the invention of a new
mathematical function, known as the Shkarofsky function, which is
used in the heating of plasmas close to cyclotron resonances. He
has published as a principal or co-author about 134 papers in
various journals and written 172 reports on the above research areas.

Dr.Shkarofsky is a member of the American
Geophysical Union and a fellow of the American Physical Society
and its Plasma Physics Division. He has served on the National
Research Council Advisory Committee on Physics, and as professeur
invite du Centre de Recherche INRS-Energie, Universite de Quebec.