Kroemer, Alferov and Kilby Share Nobel Prize
Source: Compound Semiconductor Staff.
Two of the leading researchers in the compound semiconductor field, Zhores I. Alferov and Herbert Kroemer, will share the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics with the father of the integrated circuit, Jack S. Kilby.
Alferov and Kroemer are being recognized for their ground-breaking work in the development of semiconductor heterostructures. Kilby is being recognized for the invention of the integrated circuit. Although the three men were not collaborators, the Nobel committee has grouped them together because they did the work "that has laid the foundation of modern information technology, particularly through their invention of rapid transistors, laser diodes and integrated circuits."
Kroemer is a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and he played a pivotal role in turning the ECE and Materials Science Departments into the powerhouses that they are today. Kroemer made major contributions to several important compound semiconductor technologies, including the double-heterostructure laser (the central concept in the field of semiconductor lasers), heterojunction bipolar transistors, and epitaxial growth.
Alferov is the director of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy, where he has worked since 1953. He turned his attention to III-V semiconductor heterostructures in 1962. His outstanding contributions to the understanding of injection properties, development of lasers, solar cells, LEDs and epitaxy processes have had a major impact on modern heterostructure physics and electronics.
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