Российская наука и мир (дайджест)

В России развернулись бурные споры вокруг идеи ввести кириллические имена доменов, сообщает The New York Times. Противники опасаются, что кириллические домены приведут к созданию закрытой российской сети, этакого кибергетто. Сторонники утверждают, что новые домены будут полезны целой категории людей, которые не используют латинский алфавит.

MOSCOW - The Kremlin has long been irritated by the way the United States dominates the Internet, all the way down to the ban on using Cyrillic for Web addresses - even kremlin.ru has to be demeaningly rendered in English. The Russian government, as a result, is taking the lead in a landmark shift occurring around the world to allow domain names in languages with non-Latin alphabets.
Russians themselves, though, do not seem at all eager to follow.
Cut off for decades under Communism, Russians revel in the Internet's ability to connect them to the world, and they prize the freedom of the Web even as the government has tightened control over major television channels.
But now, computer users are worried that Cyrillic domains will give rise to a hermetic Russian Web, a sort of cyberghetto, and that the push for Cyrillic amounts to a plot by the security services to restrict access to the Internet. Russian companies are also resisting Cyrillic Web addresses, complaining about costs and threats to online security.
"This is one more step toward isolation," said Aleksei Larin, 31, a construction engineer in Tula, 115 miles south of Moscow. "And since this is a Kremlin project, it is possible that it will lead to the introduction of censorship, which is something that certain officials have long sought."
Besides startling Russian officials, the reaction has offered insights into the evolution of the Internet as it has spread from the West to the rest of the world. People in places like Russia have created a hybrid Web, typing domain and e-mail addresses in Latin letters and the content in native ones. However loyal they may be to the language of Dostoyevsky, many here do not want to embrace another system.
The most widely trafficked search engine in Russia, Yandex, estimated that fewer than 10 percent of the country's Internet users would favor Cyrillic addresses in the near future. Livejournal, the busiest blogging platform in Russia, said it would not employ Cyrillic domains. "I really do not see Cyrillic domains being popular," said Dmitri N. Peskov, a prominent computer consultant who organizes Internet conferences in Russia. "People just do not see the point in having them."
More than 30 million Russians use the Internet weekly, out of a population of 140 million, and the country's growth in use is among the fastest in Europe, officials said. There are 2.5 million domains with the .ru suffix, with the address written in Latin letters.
The Cyrillic domains are likely to be activated next year. Russia is ahead in setting up its system, and its experience could be an indication of what is in store for other countries with non-Latin alphabets, like China, Japan and Egypt. Internet cultures, though, develop unpredictably, so the reaction elsewhere could be more positive.
The decision to allow non-Latin domains was approved in October by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, the supervisory body based in the United States. More than half of the world's 1.6 billion Internet users speak a native language that does not have a Latin alphabet, Icann said.
Supporters of the change, including Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, who prides himself on his Internet knowledge, said the new domains would open the Internet to a whole class of people who are unfamiliar with Latin characters or are intimidated by them.
Andrei Kolesnikov, director of the agency that coordinates Cyrillic domains, said he was at first skeptical that they were needed. But he said he had turned into a strong proponent, pointing out that Internet penetration in Russia was confined largely to big cities, and Cyrillic domains would help it grow in the provinces.
"For many people, the Cyrillic domains work much better than Latin names," Mr. Kolesnikov said. "The professionals, they don't get it, they don't understand the whole power of this, but they will get it."
Mr. Kolesnikov said fears of censorship of Cyrillic domains were unfounded and based on a misunderstanding. He said Internet filtering and fire walls, like those enforced by the Chinese government, had nothing to do with domains.
If the Russian government wanted to, it could censor .ru domains, he said. But it has not, he said, and will not do so with the new ones.
"This has no relationship to filtering or huge K.G.B. walls," Mr. Kolesnikov said.
The .ru suffix will remain when Russia rolls out its Cyrillic suffix, .рф, which stands for Russian Federation.
But holders of .ru Web sites will have to decide whether to establish companion sites with Cyrillic addresses and the Cyrillic suffix. Many may not be enthusiastic.
In late November, Mr. Kolesnikov's agency opened up registration to companies with Russian trademarks that wanted to use them as Cyrillic Web addresses. Of about 50,000 trademarks that were available, only about 4,000 had been registered as addresses so far.
"The new system will be very inconvenient," said Aleksandr Malis, president of Evroset, one of the largest cellphone and electronics retailers in Russia, which has not applied for a Cyrillic domain. "It will not give us any more clients because I do not see a way to get people to use these new Web sites."
Some companies said they would acquire Cyrillic domains mostly to protect themselves from so-called cybersquatters who might otherwise take over the domains and harm their businesses. Others worried about viruses or scams.
"This is a major headache for Russian companies," said Aleksandr Gostev, an executive in Moscow at Kaspersky Lab, an Internet security company. "It is a wide new field for fraudsters."
The authorities countered that they did not believe that the domains would touch off more crime.
Still, the early process of registering Cyrillic domains has been rocky. It was temporarily halted after a dispute over domains with generic names, like the Russian words for sports and sex. A company had registered several of those words as trademarks in anticipation of the new system, and officials ruled that the company was entitled to them because it had followed the rules.
Individuals and businesses without trademarks will be able to register Cyrillic addresses next year. The question now is how many will want to.
"Cyrillic domains are a major mistake because Latin symbols are the only symbols available on keyboards all over the world," said Ilya V. Ponomarev, an opposition member in Russia's Parliament who is a leading voice on technology. "And there is a real concern that non-Latin domains are going to help governments that are not fully democratic, including the one in Russia, to better control their information space."

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The Boston Globe / January 4, 2010

Internet: What's Yahoo in Cyrillic?

The Boston Globe поддерживает идею создания доменных имен на других алфавитах, помимо латиницы. По мнению издания, это позволит создать в сети равновесие между западным миром и странами, не использующими латинский алфавит, особенно с учетом экономического подъема в Китае и Индии.

The debut of Internet domain names entirely in non-Latin alphabets should be liberating for speakers of Russian, or Chinese, and a host of other languages. These users, because of a rules change by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, can finally be free from Western technological dominance while surfing the Web. Yet the impending debut of Web addresses that use only the Cyrillic alphabet is meeting surprising resistance in Russia, as The New York Times reported recently. Internet users and Web companies have expressed fears that the change could isolate Russians in a cyber-ghetto and make it easier for government officials to restrict visits to sites with non-Cyrillic addresses.
These fears may be overstated. While repressive governments will surely seek to limit access to sites they view as subversive - no matter which alphabet the Web addresses are written in - resourceful Internet users will always seek out ways around such censorship. So if anything, Western free-speech advocates should worry more about the effects of the new rule closer to home.
Since the dawn of the Internet, English speakers have had the luxury of visiting websites in far-off countries without having to modify their keyboards to accommodate someone else's alphabets. And many overseas website developers will keep on using the Latin alphabet, if only through force of habit. But the Web needs to find its own equilibrium, without any artificial requirement that Latin characters be a sine qua non.
As nations such as China and India gain economic power proportionate to their vast populations, the inevitable outpouring of sites with non-Latin addresses will make it more challenging for Western Internet users to click around. The sooner Americans and Europeans get familiar with once-exotic characters, the better.

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Financial Times / Thursday Dec 24 2009

Russia plans new generation of nuclear weapons

Президент Медведев заявил, что Россия будет разрабатывать ядерное оружие нового поколения, дабы укрепить потенциал сдерживания. По словам Медведева, Россия и США близки к новому соглашению о сокращении ядерных арсеналов, но разработки стратегических наступательных вооружений, в том числе ракет-носителей, в России продолжатся. Идею полного отказа от ядерного оружия, которую выдвинул Обама, Медведев назвал правильной, но предостерег, что для ее реализации понадобится время.

MOSCOW, Dec 24 - Russia will work on a new generation of atomic weapons to strengthen its nuclear deterrent, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, just hours after Moscow test-fired one of its most feared missiles.
Mr Medvedev said that Russia and the United States were close to a landmark deal on cutting arsenals of Cold War nuclear weapons, but that Moscow would still push ahead with the development of new strategic offensive weapons.
"Of course, we will develop new systems, including delivery systems, that is, missiles," Mr Medvedev told the directors of Russia's three main state-controlled television channels.
Mr Medvedev said Washington and Moscow had agreed most of the remaining issues for a deal to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which led to the biggest reduction in nuclear weapons in history.
"Despite the fact that we will prepare and sign this treaty, we will nevertheless develop our strategic offensive forces because without this there is no way to defend our country," Mr Medvedev said, several hours after the armed forces test-fired a nuclear capable missile.
The new missiles would be developed in full accordance with arms agreements made with the United States, he said.
The Kremlin chief said US President Barack Obama's idea for a nuclear-free world was "beautiful and right" but cautioned that it would take time.
The Kremlin chief said he had a "special relationship" with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who many Russians believe is still the country's paramount leader, though he struck a wistful tone when asked about his role, lamenting a lack of freedom.
"It is a simple question - of course freedom and free time," said Mr Medvedev, who in May will mark the mid-term of his presidency after nearly two years of speculation that Putin may one day return as president.
"The life of the first person, of the top leaders, is an array of limits and the saddest thing is that you only feel them at the moment when you start this work," he said.
The interview, lasting 1 hour 21 minutes, contrasted sharply with Putin's confident 4-hour televised question-and-answer session with the Russian people on Dec 3, when he ruled out leaving politics and hinted he could run in 2012 presidential elections.
Putin presided over Russia's longest economic boom in a generation while president, although Russia was hammered by the economic crisis half a year after he left office in May 2008.
Mr Medvedev said the crisis had shown the vulnerability of Russia's economy, which he said had contracted by at least 8.7 percent in 2009, the worst performance in 14 years.
"The exit from the crisis will be fairly slow," Mr Medvedev said, adding that growth could total 2.5 to 5.0 percent in 2010.
"We still have an economic system which is based on the energy market," he said. "Without modernisation, our economy has no future even though it relies on huge natural riches."

© Reuters Limited, © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009.

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The Wall Street Journal / JANUARY 7, 2010

Investments Will Remain a Gamble Until Rule of Law Comes to Russia

By IRWIN STELZER

Пока в России не построено правовое государство, инвестировать туда - довольно рискованное занятие, утверждает экономический обозреватель The Wall Street Journal Ирвин Стелзер. Экономические проблемы России сходны с проблемами Запада, но ситуацию осложняет отсутствие верховенства закона. Вдобавок экономика страдает от недостаточной диверсификации, дефицита внутренних инвестиций, чрезмерной роли нефти и другого сырья.

The Russian economy is as much a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma as Winston Churchill found its foreign policy to be in the days of Joseph Stalin.
What we do know from the World Bank is that the Russian economy is going through hard times. This is an economy rich in resources but with a per capita GDP less than that of most of its former satellites and one-third that of, say, Italy. Output and employment are declining more rapidly than authorities had expected, and, reports a team led by economist Zeljko Bogetic, there is "a sharp rise in poverty."
Despite the general improvement in the world economy and higher oil prices following the Nigerian terrorist's attempt to blow up an airliner - Nigeria is America's largest supplier of light, sweet crude - the World Bank is guessing Russia's GDP will return to precrisis levels only late in 2012.
Russia's problems are similar to those faced in Europe, America and other Western countries: too many bad loans on the banks' books, too little credit available to small businesses, and weak domestic demand.
Similar, but not identical. Available evidence suggests economies can't reach their full potential in the absence of the rule of law. Harvard professor Robert Barro analyzed data from some 100 countries and concluded that "an expansion of the rule of law would raise economic growth and lead over time to higher standards of living and, hence, to more democracy." So to forecast the future of the Russian economy, one must make a guess at its progress toward becoming a nation under law.
On present evidence, that doesn't seem to be in Russia's immediate future. This past November, a cross-party group of 130 MEPs urged President Dimitri Medvedev to establish the rule of law in Russia. Mr. Medvedev has several times expressed a desire to do just that, in good part to encourage much needed inward investment - to little effect, unless you count President Medvedev's as-yet-untested New Year's promise that first-time tax evaders won't face jail time. Whether the resourceful Russian prosecutors will see this as an invitation to using multiple charges to get around Mr. Medvedev's reform remains to be seen. Few businessmen want to become the test case.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a political opponent of Vladimir Putin, had his Yukos oil company confiscated on what many believe are trumped-up tax-evasion charges. He is now finishing one term in a Siberian jail only to face charges for other crimes. Don't bet on seeing him stroll down the streets of Moscow anytime soon. Indeed, he will be fortunate to avoid the fate of Sergei Magnitsky, attorney for William Browder's Hermitage Capital, a fund confiscated by Russian authorities and, it is alleged, its assets acquired by officials in a process known as reiderstvo, or raiding. Mr. Magnitsky died in jail awaiting trial after being denied medical treatment for an extraordinarily painful ailment.
There is an irony there: Mr. Browder, who was suddenly denied a visa to re-enter Russia and then had his fund confiscated, is the grandson of Earl Browder, one of the founders of the American Communist Party. The younger Mr. Browder, a one-time Putin-booster, now makes his headquarters in London because, he says, "I like the rule of law."
Reiderstvo, of course, has as its crucial component charging the legitimate owners of the business with some crime to get them out of the way. So Mr. Browder should consider himself lucky that he has been denied a re-entry visa and avoided becoming a neighbor of poor Mr. Khodorkovsky.
Raiding isn't Russia's only problem. As President Medvedev acknowledges, the economy is too undiversified, too dependent on oil and other raw materials, too short of inward investment. To which Russian expert Leon Aron, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, adds, too dependent on the "monotowns" that house one-quarter of Russia's urban population and are dominated by a single, often clapped-out company.
Foreign investors in Russia are playing a game that Nathan Detroit, the host in "Guys and Dolls" of "the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York," found unwinnable. On a losing streak, the gun-toting thug, Big Julie from Chicago, forced use of his own dice - which had no spots ("I know where they are," Big Julie assured the players) - and proceeded to roll only winners.
The modern version of Lenin's famous prediction that "the capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them," might be that they will provide the capital to develop Russia's natural resources so the regime can dominate its "near-abroad" and increase Western Europe's dependence on it for supplies of natural gas. But investing in a nation in which there is no established rule of law is to shoot craps with Big Vladimir of Leningrad.

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The Guardian / Wednesday 30 December 2009

Russia's Armageddon plan to save Earth from collision with asteroid

David Adam

В 2029 и 2036 годах астероид Апофис должен пройти на опасно близком расстоянии от Земли. В связи с этим Роскосмос выдвинул проект по изменению траектории космического объекта. Хотя вероятность столкновения сравнительно невелика, это тот случай, когда лучше перестраховаться.

Space scientists in Russia are preparing to boldly go where no man has gone before, except for the actor Bruce Willis.
The head of the Russian space agency said today that it was considering a Hollywood-style mission to send a spacecraft to bump a large asteroid from a possible collision course with Earth.
Anatoly Perminov told the Russian radio station Golos Rossii: "People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow us to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people."
The mission would be aimed at an asteroid called Apophis, he said, which is expected to pass close to the Earth in 2029 and again in 2036. "Calculations show that it's possible to create a special-purpose spacecraft within the time we have, which would help avoid the collision. The threat of collision can be averted."
The Hollywood action films Deep Impact and Armageddon both featured space missions scrambling to avert catastrophic collisions, the latter led by Willis.
But the creation of a system to deflect asteroids has long been the subject of scientific debate. Some experts have proposed sending a probe to circle around a dangerous asteroid and gradually change its trajectory. Others suggested sending a spacecraft to collide with it and alter its momentum, or using nuclear weapons.
Perminov said details of the project still needed to be worked out. But he said the agency would invite Nasa, the European Space Agency and others to participate.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, astronomers made headlines when they said there was a one in 37 chance that the 350-metre-wide rock would collide with Earth in 2029. Further studies ruled out such an impact, but there remains a one in 250,000 chance it could strike in 2036.
Perminov said he had heard from a scientist that Apophis is getting closer and may hit the planet. "I don't remember exactly, but it seems to me it could hit the Earth by 2032," he said.
Nasa has estimated that if the asteroid hit the Earth, it would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square miles would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.
Nasa experts have already discussed the option of landing an astronaut on an asteroid to test whether it could develop techniques to deflect a doomsday rock.
Breaking it up with an atomic warhead could generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to re-form. Scientists agree the best approach, given enough time, would be to nudge the object into a safer orbit.
Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days.
Perminov said: "We will soon hold a closed meeting of our collegium, the science-technical council, to look at what can be done. "There won't be any nuclear explosions. Everything will be done according to the laws of physics."
Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course.

guardian.co.uk ©Guardian News and Media Limited 2010.

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Intelink - La Ciotat, France / 04/01/2010

La science et les technologies russes au jour le jour

Evelyne Casalegno

Des embryons de poules pour traiter les blessures

Ученые Ставропольского государственного университета разработали новую технологию получения препарата из куриных эмбрионов для лечения ожогов, плохо заживающих ран и других болезней.

Des chercheurs russes ont élaboré une préparation efficace et peu onéreuse pour traiter blessures, brûlures et autres affections cutanées, reposant sur l'utilisation d'embryons de poules, autrement dit d'œufs, rapporte le site nkj.ru.
Cette technologie a été mise au point par des chercheurs de l'Université d'Etat de Stavropol. A partir d'embryons de poules, ils ont élaboré un procédé permettant d'obtenir une préparation pour le traitement des brûlures, des blessures qui cicatrisent mal, des plaies trophiques et autres affections.
Les cellules et tissus embryonnaires sont de plus en plus utilisés pour le traitement de blessures et autres affections dont l'issue positive dépend de la capacité du tissu endommagé à se reconstituer. Les chercheurs de Stavropol ont utilisé des œufs de poule comme matière première d'une préparation médicamenteuse embryonnaire. Ce matériau facilement disponible et peu coûteux peut être cultivé sans problèmes en laboratoire. Un ovule fécondé ne passe que les premières étapes de sa division dans l'organisme des poules.
L'embryon de la poule se développe, pour l'essentiel, dans l'œuf déjà pondu, autrement dit lors de sa couvaison ou de son incubation. C'est cette particularité qu'ont exploitée les biologistes de Stavropol. Ils ont élaboré une technologie de gestion du développement de l'embryon dès les premières minutes de sa mise en incubateur.
Les chercheurs commencent par soumettre l'embryon à un rayonnement laser, intensifiant, ce faisant, la multiplication des éléments cellulaires et les processus d'échange. Autrement dit, ils accélèrent l'arrivée à maturité des cellules et le développement de tels ou tels éléments structurels - les embryons des organes et notamment ceux liés à l'immunité et à la fabrication du sang. Si bien que dans ces embryons de poule, de nombreux paramètres (immunitaires, biochimiques) morphologiques et fonctionnels se trouvent, au bout de neuf jours de développement, très en avance par rapport aux paramètres d'embryons de contrôle n'ayant pas été soumis au rayonnement laser. A partir de là, les chercheurs ont établi les régimes de rayonnement pour lesquels on peut stimuler de manière ciblée la multiplication et l'arrivée à maturité de cellules et organes concrets.
Dès le huitième jour, explique le professeur Lioudmila Timtchenko, qui occupe la chaire de biologie générale dans cette Université, grâce à l'activation laser, les embryons atteignent un stade de développement pour lequel la matière première médicamenteuse préparée à partir de ces embryons possède une activité biologique élevée. "On aurait pu retenir une durée plus longue de développement de l'embryon, note-t-elle, et attendre que les organes, avec le développement naturel de l'embryogenèse, soient plus avancés. Mais au bout de 10 jours, l'embryon a déjà des plumes, ce qui complique singulièrement la technologie d'obtention d'une substance médicamenteuse." De plus, à ce stade de développement, le niveau des substances hautement actives garantissant la division cellulaire baisse déjà, ce qui diminue le potentiel régénérateur du matériau embryonnaire.
Toutefois, l'amélioration des propriétés régénératrices de la future matière première médicamenteuse embryonnaire ne s'arrête pas là. Les embryons de poule développés jusqu'au stade désiré sont ensuite refroidis à une température de 2 à 4°. Cette procédure, agressive pour les embryons, active la création de stimulateurs biogéniques. Une fois retirés de l'œuf, les tissus de l'embryon de poule sont broyés et amenés à une consistance homogène. Puis ils sont épurés, de telle sorte que la substance prête se présente sous la forme d'un homogénat tissulaire fait de tissus broyés, de cellules et de liquide tissulaire.
La mise au point de cette nouvelle préparation tissulaire a pris près de neuf ans, a précisé Lioudmila Timtchenko, mais son coût de fabrication est d'une centaine de fois inférieur à celui de préparations analogues. Et ce, pour une efficacité plus grande : on obtient avec elle une guérison beaucoup plus rapide des brûlures, des décubitus, des blessures qui cicatrisent mal, des plaies trophiques, sans qu'il soit besoin de refaire quotidiennement les pansements.

Un laser pour passer au peigne fin le milieu environnant

Сотрудники Физического института им. П.Н.Лебедева РАН (ФИАН) разработали компактный лазер для зондирования окружающей среды. Лазер может перестраиваться более чем по 400 спектральным линиям, длина волны меняется от 2,5 до 4 мкм и от 5 до 6,5 мкм. Эта особенность позволяет обнаруживать в атмосфере даже малые примеси различных веществ.

Des physiciens russes ont créé un laser permettant de détecter dans l'atmosphère de nombreux polluants, y compris des substances toxiques ou explosives, rapporte le site nkj.ru.
Une équipe de chercheurs de l'Institut de physique Lebedev (FIAN), dépendant de l'Académie des sciences de Russie, est parvenue à créer un laser CO, qui permet de mettre au jour dans l'atmosphère toute une palette de polluants, y compris des substances toxiques et explosives.
Ce nouveau laser peut être réglé sur plus de 400 lignes de spectre, d'une longueur d'ondes variant de 2,5 à 4 mcm et de 5 à 6,5 mcm. Cette particularité de ce nouvel appareil de spectroscopie lui permet de détecter dans les mélanges gazeux complexes de l'atmosphère les plus petites substances narcotiques, toxiques ou explosives.
L'idée de créer un tel laser est venue en 2000 à une équipe de chercheurs conduite par le doctorant en sciences physiques et mathématiques Dmitri Sinitsyne. En fait, les bandes spectrales de rayonnement d'un laser au monoxyde de carbone (CO) couvrent les bandes dans lesquelles sont situées les raies d'absorption non seulement de substances telles que l'eau, le gaz carbonique, le méthane, le dioxyde d'azote, le monoxyde d'azote, l'acétone, l'essence, le méthanol, etc., mais aussi de toxines et de substances explosives et narcotiques. Ce qui complique l'analyse spectrale laser des mélanges gazeux qui contiennent plusieurs types de polluants.
Afin de confirmer la viabilité de leur projet, les chercheurs ont dû procéder à des calculs préalables. Ces calculs ont montré que pour pouvoir analyser des mélanges gazeux aux composants multiples, c'est un laser CO Oberton (harmonique), doté d'un refroidissement cryogénique et d'un pompage par décharge à haute fréquence, qui convenait le mieux (dans un laser Oberton, le quantum de lumière scintille lors du passage de la molécule non pas à un niveau de vibration voisin, mais à un seul et unique niveau).
"Un laser qui utilise les transitions de vibration harmoniques d'une molécule d'oxyde de carbone donne la possibilité de passer d'une longueur d'ondes étudiée à une autre. La décharge haute fréquence permet de gérer de manière relativement simple des paramètres de pompage tels que, par exemple, le passage d'un régime de rayonnement ininterrompu à un régime à impulsions. Pour ce qui est du refroidissement cryogénique, c'est précisément lors du refroidissement du milieu actif du laser CO à une température inférieure à 77° K (moins 196° C) qu'il présente les meilleures caractéristiques de sortie", explique Leonid Seleznev, l'un des membres de l'équipe ayant conçu ce nouveau type de laser, qui travaille au Laboratoire des lasers gazeux du département de radiophysique quantique de l'Institut Lebedev.
Une des propriétés importantes de ce laser est sa compacité, avec un volume de milieu actif d'environ 25 ml.
"Cette compacité a pu être obtenue en générant une décharge de haute fréquence entre deux électrodes proches l'une de l'autre, autrement dit grâce à ce que l'on appelle une décharge en fente. L'écartement des électrodes étant, dans ce cas, peu important, en refroidissant ceux-ci à des températures cryogéniques à l'aide de l'azote liquide, nous refroidissons également le gaz situé entre eux. Avec une telle géométrie, nous parvenons à donner au gaz de l'énergie sans avoir, pratiquement, à le réchauffer, explique Leonid Seleznev.
Les concentrations minimales d'impuretés atmosphériques découvertes à l'aide de ce spectromètre laser, ainsi que les distances auxquelles cette détection est possible, sont variables selon les substances et vont de quelques mètres à plusieurs dizaines de kilomètres, selon les divers polluants. C'est la raison pour laquelle les chercheurs de l'Institut Lebedev sont en train de calculer les caractéristiques du laser pour chaque tâche concrète.

2,5 milliards de roubles pour des panneaux solaires performants

Роснано финансирует проект по созданию двусторонних солнечных панелей на основе монокремния.

Le conseil de surveillance de Rosnano a approuvé l'octroi de 2,5 milliards de roubles pour un projet de panneaux solaires particulièrement performants, rapporte le site strf.ru.
Rosnano va investir 2,5 milliards de roubles dans un projet de fabrication de panneaux solaires reposant sur le monosilicium et sensibles à la lumière des deux côtés. La réalisation de ce projet permettra de mettre sur le marché mondial des panneaux solaires double face ayant un rendement supérieur de 10 à 70 % aux panneaux n'utilisant qu'un seul côté (+ 10 % pour les installations sans constructions supplémentaires ; + 70 % pour celles dotées de structures réfléchissantes et systèmes de suivi).
La transformation de la lumière solaire dans ces modules se fait non seulement lorsque les rayons solaires viennent frapper le côté qui reçoit directement cette lumière, mais lorsqu'ils frappent la face arrière - les rayons solaires étant alors réfléchis à partir de surfaces naturelles ou de constructions réfléchissantes spéciales. Cette technologie repose sur les travaux menés par la société Solnetchny veter (Vent solaire), conjointement avec la société scientifique et de production Quark, qui font toutes deux partie du groupe Konti.
Le lancement de la principale ligne de production est prévu pour 2012. La capacité de production projetée devrait être atteinte en 2015. Le volume de la production représentera alors environ 120 MW par an, les bénéfices annuels devant se chiffrer à 11,4 milliards de roubles.
Le processus de production prévoit la formation de couches d'une épaisseur de l'ordre de 20 à 80 nanomètres : ce sont elles qui vont permettre à la face arrière d'être sensible à la lumière, et faire que l'élément sera transparent pour la lumière infrarouge ayant une longueur d'onde supérieure à 1 micromètre. Le coût de fabrication de ces modules sera malgré tout compétitif comparé aux panneaux simple face. Le projet prévoit également l'élaboration d'une technologie pour la réalisation complète des avantages spécifiques des éléments solaires des deux côtés et la baisse ultérieure des coûts.
"Il s'agit de la création de la première unité de production industrielle en Russie de panneaux solaires double face, note le directeur gérant de Rosnano, Konstantin Demetriou. Les coûts de production seront parfaitement compétitifs, comparativement aux modèles simple face. Aujourd'hui, les panneaux solaires reposant sur les technologies au silicium sont les plus demandés : grâce à leur meilleur rapport prix/efficacité, ils représentent environ 80 % des parts du marché mondial de l'énergie solaire. Ce projet permettra de diversifier le portefeuille des projets de notre corporation dans le domaine de l'énergie solaire et assurera la présence sur le marché d'un produit compétitif avec une technologie russe originale."
Le marché mondial de l'énergie solaire est estimé à près d'une vingtaine de milliards de dollars pour 2009 et devrait bondir à plus de 30 milliards d'ici 2013. Durant la même période, la production devrait progresser, en volume, de 29 % par an, pour passer de 5,9 à 18,5 GW. L'essentiel de ce marché se situe en Europe. La société Quark a d'ores et déjà conclu plusieurs contrats couvrant une grande partie de la production prévue.

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Продолжение дайджеста за ЯНВАРЬ 2010 года (часть 2)