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Zhores Ivanovich Alferov

Alferov, Zhores Ivanovich was born in Vitebsk, Belorussia, USSR, on March 15, 1930. In the post-war particular situation Zhores attended an only boy's school in the destroyed Minsk-city, and was lucky in having an excellent physics teacher there Yakov Borisovich Meltserson. The teacher loved physics devotedly and his explanation of the cathode oscilloscope operation and talk on radar systems greatly impressed young Zhores. When finishing the school he took his teacher’s advice which institution to choose for education and that was a celebrated Ul'yanov Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad (abbreviated to LETI). Theoretical courses of studies were easy enough for him. It was the laboratory research that attracted him. Being a third-year student, Zhores began to work in a laboratory of vacuum processes.

In 1952, he graduated from the Department of Electronics of Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad. Since 1953 he has been a staff member of the Physico -Technical Institute where he held consecutively the following positions: junior researcher (1953–1964), senior researcher (1964–1967), head of the laboratory (1967–1987), director (1987–present).

In 1961 he defended his dissertation on the research of bullgermanic and silicon rectifiers. By the results of heterojunctions in semiconductors defended his doctoral dissertation and became Doctor of Physics and Mathematics. In 1968-1969 he realised all the ideas on control the electron and light fluxes in classical heterostructures. Apart from fundamental results that were quite new and important efficient one-side injection, the "superinjection" effect, electron and optical confinement in a double heterostructure. He succeeded in employing principal benefits of heterostructure applications in devices, lasers, LEDs.

Heterostructure-based solar cells were created by him as far back as 1970. And when American scientists published their early works, their solar batteries have been already mounted on the satellites (sputniks) and their industrial production was in full swing.

In 1972 he became Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Science. In 1973 Zh. I. Alferov took over the chair of optoelectronicsat the St Petersburg State Electrotechnical University and in 1988 he was appointed to Dean of the Faculty of Physics and Technology at the St Petersburg Technical University.

Professor Zh. I. Alferov is the author of the fundamental works on Physics of semiconductors, semiconductor devices, and semiconductor and quantum electronics. He participated in creating the first Russian transistors and bull germanic rectifiers. He is a founder of the semiconductor heterostructures and gears on their basis, which are the recent trend in Physics of semi-conductors and semiconductor electronics engineering. Professor Zh. I. Alferov is the author of 50 inventions, of three monographies and more than 350 scientific articles in domestic and international magazines. He was awarded the Gold Ballaniien medal by the USA Franklin Institute, the International Prize at the Symposium on gallium arsenide, the Gold Velker medal and the Karpinsky Prize (Germany).

Since 1989 he has been Chairman of the Presidium of the Leningrad- St. Petersburg Scientific Centre of the Russian Academy of Science. From 1990 was the Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Science. He is married and has a son and a daughter.

Professor Zh. I. Alferov is Laureate of the year 2000 Nobel Prize. He often says: ”…if our country's choice is to be a Great Power, Russia will be the great power not because of the nuclear potential, not because of faith in God or president, or western investments but thanks to the labour of the nation, faith in Knowledge and Science and thanks to the maintenance and development of scientific potential and education”.

Notes:

heterojunction - гетеропереход

bull germanic and silicon rectifiers – германиевые и кремниевые выпрямители, преобразователи переменного электрического тока в постоянный

LED – светоизлучающий диод

gears – механизмы, устройства

cathode oscilloscope – катодный осциллограф

light flux – световой поток

gallium arsenide – арсенид галлия