Named in memory of Abram Fedorovich Ioffe (1880–1960), one of the originators of the Soviet physics school, a pioneer in the investigation of semiconductors and an academician of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. Ioffe was the organizer and the first director of the Physical and Technical Institute, of the Institute of Semiconductors and of the Physical and Agricultural Institute in Leningrad. He also initiated the creation of physical and technical institutes in Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Sverdlovsk and Tomsk. (M 26763) _ _.