[1][3] He was a co-author of a detailed feasibility study undertaken by a team in 1954 and 1955, involving the theory, design and calculations of the next-generation RDS-37 device, an air-delivered two-stage thermonuclear bomb which was detonated in 1956: in the first stage, x-ray radiation was produced from a primary nuclear charge; in the second stage the radiation compressed a thermonuclear core resulting in a fusion reaction.

The development of this more-efficient and more-powerful Soviet thermonuclear weapon was galvanized by reports of American success with a high-yield device on 1 March 1954, the first of the Castle Bravo tests.

Between 1959 and 1961, he developed original technical ideas, later credited to him as inventions, which were included in all further Soviet nuclear devices, and he co-designed and was involved in the testing several new bombs.

He was involved in the design of the principal physical scheme of the RDS-220 bomb, 'Tsar Bomba', the largest-ever nuclear device.

In 1965, using his theoretical results, he suggested a new direction for the design of Soviet thermonuclear weapons of megatonne yields.

The first successful test of these improved weapons was conducted in 1966, using his measurement scheme, in tunnels at Novaya Zemlya.

[1] In the period from 1955 to 1983, Goncharov participated in ten aerial and underground nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk, Novaya Zemlya and Azgir, during most of which time he was deputy head of scientific research or a member of the State Commission.