Zhores I.Alferov was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, USSR, on 15 March 1930. In 1952, he graduated from the Department of Electronics Electro technical Institute V.I.Ulyanov (Lenin) in Leningrad.

Since 1953 Ioffe Physico-belongs to the Technical Institute where he held consecutively positions: junior researcher (1953-1964), senior researcher (1964-1967), director of the laboratory (1967-1987), and director (1987-present) .He obtained his first Soviet award, the tape Honor in 1959. Shortly after defending his thesis as a candidate of technological sciences in 1961 and mathematics in 1970 at the Ioffe Institute. Since 1962 he has worked in the area of III-V semiconductor heterostructures. His outstanding contributions to physics and technology of semiconductor hesterostructuras III-V, including research on its properties injection, development of lasers, solar cells, LED's and processes epitaxy has led to the creation of modern physics and electronics based heterostructures.

In 1973 Zh.I.Alferov assumed the chair of optoelectronics at the University of Electrical Engineering of the State of St. Petersburg (formerly VI Ulyanov Lenin Electro technical Institute) and in 1998 he was appointed Rector of the Faculty of Physics and Technology at the Technical University of San Petersburg. He was elected as a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1972, occupying its space Academician in 1979. Since 1989 has been successively Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and President of its Scientific Center in St. Petersburg. In recognition for his research, Professor Zh.I.Alferov has received the following national and international awards:

• Ballantyne Medal by the Franklin Institute (USA, 1971)

• Lenin Prize (USSR, 1972), Hewlett-Packard Eurofísica Award (1978)

• State Prize (USSR, 1984), Symposium GaAs Prize and Medal H.Welker (1987)

• Karpinskii Award (FRG, 1989), Ioffe Prize (Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996)

• Award Nicholas Holonyak, Jr. (2000)

• Nobel Prize in Physics (2000)

He is also an honorary member of the following companies:

• Life Member of the Franklin Institute (USA, 1971)

• Foreign Member of the German Academy of Sciences (1987)

• Honorary Professor at the University of Havana (Cuba, 1987)

• Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1988)

• Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Engineering (USA, 1990)

• Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA, 1990)

• Honorary Member of the Academy of Meteorology (St Petersburg, 1994)

• Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (1995)

• Foreign Member of the Korean Academy of Science and Technology (1995)

• Honorary Member of the Pakistan Society of Science and Technology Semiconductors (1996)

• Honorary Academician of the International Academy of Refrigeration (St Petersburg, 1997)

• Academician of the International Academy of Sciences for the Protection of Nature, Man and Ecology (St Petersburg, 1998)

• Honorary Doctor of Humanities University (St Petersburg, 1998).

He is editor of the Russian magazine, Pis'ma v Zhurnal Tekhnicheskoi fiziki (English Technical Physics Letters on Technical and physical--written) and member of the Editorial Board of the Russian Nauka i Zhizn Magazine '(Science and Life - Science and Life- ). Zh.I.Alferov is the author of 4 books, 400 articles and 50 inventions in the field of semiconductor technology.

Professor Zh.I.Alferov was invested Doctor Honoris Causa from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, on a proposal from the E.T.S. Telecommunications Engineers, on 1 October 2001. He acted as Godfather D. Antonio Luque.