Alferov, Zhores Ivanovich, 1930–2019, Russian physicist, b. Vitebsk (now in Belarus), Ph.D. V. I. Ulyanov Electrotechnical Institute, 1952. He joined the research staff of the A. F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, and served as its director from 1987 to 2003. Alferov and Herbert Kroemer, who worked separately, shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics with Jack Kilby for inventing and developing fast opto- and microelectronic components based on layered semiconductor structures, known as heterostructures. Developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the technology underlies a broad array of modern devices and systems, including satellite communications, cellular telephones, fiber-optics, bar-code readers, and laser pointers. Alferov, who was elected vice president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (subsequently Russia) in 1990, also served in the Russian State Duma from 1995 until his death.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Physics: Biographies
