Zhores Ivanovich Alferov
Alferov, Zhores Ivanovich (1930-) is a Russian physicist who made major contributions to electronics technology. He shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics with German-born American physicist Herbert Kroemer and American electrical engineer Jack Kilby .
Alferov was born on March 15, 1930, in Vitebsk, in what is now Belarus but was then part of the Soviet Union. In 1952, he graduated from the Lenin Electrotechnical Institute (now St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University) in Leningrad, Soviet Union (now St. Petersburg, Russia). He worked for the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg. He earned a doctor of science degree in physics and mathematics from the Ioffe Institute and became its director in 1987.
Alferov's Nobel Prize-winning work involved the use of semiconductor heterostructures in electronic devices. These structures consist of two or more thir layers of different semiconductors. A semiconductor is a material that conducts (carries) electric current better than does an insulator, such as wood or glass, but not as well as a conductor, such as silver or copper. In an electronic device, all the layers of a semiconductor heterostructure act together to perform a single function, such as controlling the flow of electric current.
In 1963, Alferov and Kroemer, working independently, suggested how semiconductor heterostructures could be used in lasers. A research team led by Alferov developed many types of components made of heterostructures. The new laser technology was later used in the fiber-optic cables that link the Internet. It is also in CD players, bar-code readers, and laser pointers. Fast transistors using heterostructure technology are now used in radio-link satellites and the base stations of mobile telephones.
Alferov has produced more than 50 inventions in semiconductor technology. In 1991, he became vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences.