'Evgenii Fedorovich Gross' (1897 –
1972) was a
Soviet physicist working in
optics and
spectroscopy of
condensed matter.
He graduated from
Leningrad University in 1924. He became a correspondent member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in
1946.
His two key achievements are the experimental observation of the fine structure of
Rayleigh scattering line due to Brillouin-Mandelstam light scattering on acoustic waves in condensed matter (1930) and the experimental discovery of the
exciton (in
semiconductor crystals of
cuprous oxide) through evidence of its
hydrogen-like
optical spectrum.