Alferov, Zhores Ivanovich
Zhores Ivanovich Alferov, 1930–, Russian physicist, 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 was promoted to director in 1987. 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 also has served in the Russian State Duma, to which he was first elected in 1995.