Zhores Alferov
Zhores Alferov was an outstanding scientist, Nobel Prize winner in Physics, who was born in Vitebsk, Belarus.
In 2000, Zhores Alferov received the Nobel Prize for the development of semiconductor heterojunction for opto- and microelectronics – in fact, the principles of mobile communication. Thanks to Alferov's discoveries, the planet has stepped into the digital age.
Zhores Alferov was born in Vitebsk on 15 March 1930. He graduated with honors from Secondary School No. 42 in Minsk. He studied a few semesters at Belarusian Polytechnic Institute (now Belarusian National Technical University) and was admitted without examinations to the Faculty of Electronic Engineering of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute (LETI) from which he graduated in 1952. In 1953 he joined A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute as a junior researcher. From 1987 to 2003 Alferov was the director of the Ioffe Institute. Alferov served as Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences from 1991 to 2017.
In Belarus, Zhores Alferov was awarded the Order of Francysk Skaryna (2001) and the Order of Friendship of Peoples (2009).