FGUP NIIKI OEP is the Russian abbreviation for the Research Institute for Complex Testing of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems, which is located near the town of Sosnovy Bor. It was founded in 1969 as a branch of the S.I. Vavilov State Optical Institute, with the mission to carry out the ground-based testing and calibration of optical systems for space missions, to study lasers and laser systems, to test optical and optic-electronic devices, and also to produce quantities of these specialist manufactured systems .

In 1990 our Institute was granted the status of autonomous enterprise providing a service to the federal authority and it received the name NIIKI OEP.

In 1997 the Institute was granted the status of a Federal Research-and- Production Centre.

Today our Institute is a large research and trials complex forming an integral part of the Russian optical industry. Its unique test-facilities make it possible to test optoelectronic devices under conditions close to actual operating conditions. Tens of research units, technological complexes, modern optical and mechanical pilot production facilities allow one to solve the full cycle of product development: research, development, manufacture and testing of optoelectronic devices and laser systems for a variety of applications. Several generations of optical and optoelectronic devices, among them space, photographic and thermal direction- finding instrumentation, have been tested on the Institute test-facilities, including a full-scale environmental simulation of the Earth's atmosphere and space.

A series of high-power all-purpose laser installations based on the solid-state and gas lasers have been created at our Institute.

In the late 1970s, a Nd-glass six-beam facility "PROGRESS M" entered service to investigate inertial confinement fusion.

A power density of 10¹⁹ W/cm² was first achieved in Russia with a single-beam solid-state facility using methods based on sub-picosecond pulse generation. This opened up new possibilities to investigate experimentally the interaction between superstrong light fields and matter.

A high-power repetitively pulsed CO₂ laser and a Nd-glass cascaded laser made it possible to achieve a minimum permissible laser beam divergence with high energy and power.

The manufacturing and technology base that we have built up at out Institute contributes greatly to the production of the optoelectronic devices and laser systems, among them large aspheric optics components and laser active elements made of neodymium-doped glass.

Because of its extensive manufacturing capability and technology base, the Institute takes an active part in the development and production of the optoelectronic equipment for a number of different ministries.

NIIKI OEP works closely with research institutes and enterprises of optical industry and with the Russian nuclear centres like VNIIEF and VNIITF, and supports nuclear power plants by supplying them with picture monitors, diagnostic instrumentation and with instrumentation for monitoring of production equipment.

Today the Institute employs more than 900 highly skilled specialists, among them 80 Ph.D's and Doctors of Science.

As it develops its intellectual, scientific, technological and manufacturing potential, our Institute develops modern lines of research.

Currently the Institute is engaged in the following directions of activity:

• System optimisation and the complex testing of optoelectronic devices
• Research and applied studies on laser techniques
• Development and production of optoelectronic devices and optical components and sub-assemblies.