Alferov, Zhores Ivanovich

Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (born 15.03.1930) was a Soviet physicist and academician (1979; corresponding member 1972). Born in Vitebsk. He graduated from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute (1952). From 1952 he worked at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (from 1973 as head of a laboratory) and from 1972 was also professor at the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute. His work was in the field of semiconductor physics, semiconductor and quantum electronics, and technical physics. He took part in the creation of the first Soviet transistors, photodiodes and high-power germanium rectifiers. He discovered the phenomenon of superinjection in heterostructures and showed that in semiconductor heterostructures electron and light fluxes can be controlled in a fundamentally new way. He created “ideal” semiconductor heterostructures. Alferov's research in effect created a new field — heterojunctions in semiconductors. In 1972, for fundamental research on heterojunctions in semiconductors and the creation of new devices based on them, he was awarded the Lenin Prize jointly with others.