Denisyuk, Yuri (b. 1927), Russian physicist who graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics in 1954, and worked in the Vavilov State Optical Institute for more than 40 years. In 1962 he conceived the idea of recording light wavefronts by interference with a reference beam, and produced the first reflection hologram. Although slow to accept his discoveries, the authorities eventually realized their importance, and set up laboratories in all the major museums to make holograms of their treasures for travelling exhibitions. Denisyuk subsequently headed the A. F. Ioffe Physico-Chemical Institute of St Petersburg and the S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute Laboratory. His later research included work on holograms made without a reference beam and the recording of holographic images by incoherent light.
— Graham Saxby
