Russia's MEPhI Receives Over 1 Billion Rubles in Funding for Two Domestic Scientific Instrument Projects

The Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education will allocate 2.81 billion rubles to support the development of eight types of domestically produced scientific research equipment. According to the results of an additional competitive selection, the funds are planned to be disbursed from 2026 to 2028, with six universities and research institutions set to receive support. Among them, the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) will receive the largest share, with two projects totaling slightly over 1 billion rubles in funding.

Under the arrangement, MEPhI will receive 591 million rubles for the development of a tandem quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer (QTOF MS), and an additional 433 million rubles for the atom probe tomography project. Both projects have previously been approved by the Russian Academy of Sciences and included in the list of successful projects under the federal program "Development of Domestic Instruments for Civil Scientific Research."

The tandem quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometer is being developed by a team from the Department of Molecular Physics at MEPhI. The device features a combination of two types of analyzers and can be used for structural analysis of organic compounds such as proteins. Protein sequencing, i.e., determining the amino acid sequence in proteins, has applications in medicine, pharmacology, agricultural product monitoring, forensic science, and scientific research.

The other project, the atom probe tomography system, is being carried out jointly by MEPhI and a research team from the National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute." The device, named "ATOTOM," is used to study material structure at the atomic scale and determine the chemical nature of detected atoms. Once a sample enters the device, laser pulses cause it to evaporate progressively at the nanometer scale; the chemical composition of the evaporated atoms is then determined via mass spectrometry, enabling the construction of a three-dimensional map of the atomic arrangement within the sample.

In the new phase of the project, the MEPhI team will advance the tomograph through industrial design, bringing it to a state ready for batch industrial production.