Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –
Source: Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University – Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University –
March 15, 2025 marks the 95th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet and Russian physicist, academician, Nobel Prize laureate Zhores Ivanovich Alferov. On the eve of the anniversary date, SPbPU employees laid flowers at the memorial plaque of the outstanding scientist, who worked at the Polytechnic University for almost 30 years.
“We remember Zhores Ivanovich as a cheerful person who set ambitious goals for himself and achieved them,” said Vitaly Sergeev, First Vice-Rector of SPbPU, at the beginning of the ceremony. “He did a lot for the Polytechnic University, an entire direction within the Polytechnic was created thanks to Zhores Ivanovich, a huge thank you to him for this and bright memory.”
“For me, Zhores Ivanovich was at first an unattainable star, but then he turned out to be very simple and humane in communication,” shared his memories Vladimir Glukhov, advisor to the rector’s office of SPbPU. “I would like to emphasize that the physics and technology faculty he founded was unusual: there were four departments, and each was headed by an academician. And 80 percent of the teachers were members of the Academy of Sciences. And on the basis of this team, the St. Petersburg Academic University was created. As long as we live, we will remember Zhores Ivanovich Alferov.”
“Zhores Ivanovich was distinguished by a very warm attitude towards students,” added Nikolai Ivanov, acting director of the Physics and Mechanics Institute of SPbPU. “Many departments of the Physics and Engineering Faculty that he created are now in PhysMech. And current teachers who studied with Zhores Ivanovich Alferov say that he had an exceptionally kind attitude towards students. It would seem that the director, an academician, a very busy person, but he found time to talk for a long time with his students and postgraduates.”
Professors of the Higher School of Fundamental Physics Research Nikita Averkiev and Vadim Korablyov also spoke at the ceremony, noting Zhores Alferov’s contribution to the training of scientific personnel and the development of international relations.
Thanks to the inventions of Zhores Alferov and his students, such familiar things as lasers, semiconductors, LEDs, and fiber-optic networks became available to humanity. His discoveries became the basis for the creation of modern electronic devices, including mobile phones, CD players, fiber-optic communications, and much more. Alferov made a significant contribution to the development of electronics and digital technologies.
One of Alferov’s outstanding discoveries is the creation of heterojunctions in semiconductors. These are microstructures in which two or more semiconductors with different chemical compositions are brought into contact. In the 1960s, scientists understood what fantastic prospects the implementation of the idea of semiconductor devices based on heterostructures opened up. The main problem, which could not be solved for a long time, was to select semiconductors ideally suited for this. Alferov’s merit lies precisely in the fact that he was the first to succeed in doing this.
In 1967, he and his colleagues created heterostructures with the required properties, and in 1970, the first semiconductor heterolaser operating in continuous mode at room temperature. In 1972, Alferov was awarded the highest scientific award of the USSR – the Lenin Prize, and in the same year he became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. And in 1979, he was elected an academician, this happened on his birthday, March 15. In 2000, Alferov’s contribution was also recognized by the highest world scientific award – the Nobel Prize. The scientist received it for the development of semiconductor heterostructures and the creation of fast opto- and microelectronic components.
Zhores Alferov had scientific intuition and was one of the first to appreciate the prospects for the development of quantum dots. His work on heterostructure lasers was continued in the development of quantum dot lasers.
Alferov’s legacy included not only his outstanding scientific works, but also a school for training scientific personnel. In 1988, he created the Physics and Technology Department at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. Its graduates had encyclopedic knowledge in the field of physics and practical skills in working with modern measuring equipment. The department consisted of four departments: plasma physics, space research, solid-state microelectronics, and solid-state physics. In 2015, the department became part of the Institute of Physics, Nanotechnology, and Telecommunications of SPbPU (now the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications – Ed.), and Alferov became its scientific director.
Zhores Ivanovich understood that the development of science and the success of its practical use are impossible without an effective system for training scientific and pedagogical personnel in universities. That is why, despite his enormous workload, he agreed to be the chairman of the Scientific and Methodological Council for Physics at the Ministry of Education and Science. His name attracted many famous scientists, leaders and organizers of higher education to work at the NMS. Current issues of teaching physics were discussed at the meetings of the Presidium of the NMS.
Zhores Ivanovich was not only an outstanding scientist, but also a wonderful storyteller and loved to cite real-life stories in his reports and official speeches, and he always did so with great humor. Many stories are collected in the book “Alferov Gate”, compiled by Arkady Sosnov. For Zhores Ivanovich’s 95th birthday, the Polytechnic University reissued this book in a new edition.
On March 17, 2020, in memory of Academician Zhores Alferov and on the 90th anniversary of his birth, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the Main Building of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University.
The memory of the outstanding scientist is also perpetuated by the creation of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences on his initiative. This happened in 2023 largely due to the authority and influence of Zhores Ivanovich Alferov. On March 18, the St. Petersburg branch of the RAS will host a ceremonial open meeting dedicated to the 95th anniversary of Academician Zhores Alferov.
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