Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (also Alfyorov) (Russian: Жоре́с Ива́нович Алфёров) (born March 15 1930) is a Russian physicist and Academic who contributed significantly to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics. He invented the heterotransistor

Birth and education

Alferov was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, in a Belarusians-Jewish^[1] mixed family. In 1952 he graduated from V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad (abbreviated to LETI). Since 1953 he has worked in the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Russian Academy of Sciences since 1991). From the Institute he earned several scientific degrees: a Candidate of Sciences in Technology in 1961 and a Doctor of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics in 1970. He has been director of the Institute since 1987. He was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1972, and a full member in 1979. From 1989 he has been Vice-President of the USSR (Russian since 1991) Academy of Sciences and President of its Saint Petersburg Scientific Center. Since 1995 he is a member of the State Duma on the list of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. He received 2000 Nobel prize in physics together with Herbert Kroemer, "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics".

Alverov invented the heterotransistor. This coped with much higher frequencies than its predecessors, and apparently revolutionised the mobile phone and satellite communications. Alverov and Kroemer independently applied this technology to firing laser lights. This in turn revolutionised semiconductor design in a host of areas, including LEDs, barcodes readers and CDs.

Hermann Grimmeiss, of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards Nobel prizes, said: "Without Alferov, it would not be possible to transfer all the information from satellites down to the Earth or to have so many telephone lines between cities."

Research area

Since 1962 he has been working in the area of semiconductor heterostructures. His contributions to physics and technology of semiconductor heterostructures, especially investigations of injection properties, development of lasers, solar cells, LED's, and epitaxy processes have led to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics.

Awards

• Lenin Prize (1972)
• USSR State Prize (1984)
• Ioffe Prize (Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996)
• Demidov Prize (1999)
• Nobel prize in physics for 2000 (together with Herbert Kroemer and Jack Kilby).
• Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology (2001) and others

References

External links

• Biography, on the website of Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute
• Autobiography, on the website of Nobel Foundation web group in Stockholm

•  • [ e] Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates
1901-1925	Rntgen (1901) • Lorentz / Zeeman (1902) • Becquerel / P.Curie / M.Curie (1903) • Rayleigh (1904) • Lenard (1905) • Thomson (1906) • Michelson (1907) • Lippmann (1908) • Marconi / Braun (1909) • van der Waals (1910) • Wien (1911) • Daln (1912) • Kamerlingh Onnes (1913) • von Laue (1914) • W.L.Bragg / W.H.Bragg (1915) • Barkla (1917) • Planck (1918) • Stark (1919) • Guillaume (1920) • Einstein (1921) • N.Bohr (1922) • Millikan (1923) • M.Siegbahn (1924) • Franck / Hertz (1925)
1926-1950	Perrin (1926) • Compton / Wilson (1927) • Richardson (1928) • De Broglie (1929) • Raman (1930) • Heisenberg (1932) • Schrdinger / Dirac (1933) • Chadwick (1935) • Hess / C.D.Anderson (1936) • Davisson / Thomson (1937) • Fermi (1938) • Lawrence (1939) • Stern (1943) • Rabi (1944) • Pauli (1945) • Bridgman (1946) • Appleton (1947) • Blackett (1948) • Yukawa (1949) • Powell (1950)
1951-1975	Cockcroft / Walton (1951) • Bloch / Purcell (1952) • Zernike (1953) • Born / Bothe (1954) • Lamb / Kusch (1955) • Shockley / Bardeen / Brattain (1956) • Yang / T.D.Lee (1957) • Čerenkov / Frank / Tamm (1958) • Segr / Chamberlain (1959) • Glaser (1960) • Hofstadter / Mssbauer (1961) • Landau (1962) • Wigner / Goeppert‑Mayer / Jensen (1963) • Townes / Basov / Prokhorov (1964) • Tomonaga / Schwinger / Feynman (1965) • Kastler (1966) • Bethe (1967) • Alvarez (1968) • Gell‑Mann (1969) • Alfvn / Nel (1970) • Gabor (1971) • Bardeen / Cooper / Schrieffer (1972) • Esaki / Giaever / Josephson (1973) • Ryle / Hewish (1974) • A.Bohr / Mottelson / Rainwater (1975)
1976-2000	Richter / Ting (1976) • P.W.Anderson / Mott / van Vleck (1977) • Kapitsa / Penzias / Wilson (1978) • Glashow / Salam / Weinberg (1979) • Cronin / Fitch (1980) • Bloembergen / Schawlow / K.Siegbahn (1981) • Wilson (1982) • Chandrasekhar / Fowler (1983) • Rubbia / van der Meer (1984) • von Klitzing (1985) • Ruska / Binnig / Rohrer (1986) • Bednorz / Mller (1987) • Lederman / Schwartz / Steinberger (1988) • Ramsey / Dehmelt / Paul (1989) • Friedman / Kendall / R.E.Taylor (1990) • de Gennes (1991) • Charpak (1992) • Hulse / J.H.Taylor (1993) • Brockhouse / Shull (1994) • Perl / Reines (1995) • D.Lee / Osheroff / Richardson (1996) • Chu / Cohen-Tannoudji / Phillips (1997) • Laughlin / Strmer / Tsui (1998) • 't Hooft / Veltman (1999) • Alferov / Kroemer / Kilby (2000)
2001-2025	Cornell / Ketterle / Wieman (2001) • Davis / Koshiba / Giacconi (2002) • Abrikosov / Ginzburg / Leggett (2003) • Gross / Politzer / Wilczek (2004) • Glauber / Hall / Hnsch (2005) • Mather / Smoot (2006)