Prior to becoming an American, Professor Kroemer began his professional career back in 1952 at the University of Göttingen in Germany, with his dissertation on hot-electron effects. The same year, 1952, Professor Alferov graduated from the Department of Electronics of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad and immediately embarked on a career as a staff member of the A.E. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia. Having had the pleasure of meeting both these gentlemen personally as a compound semiconductor journalist in the 1980s, and covering the scientific end of the Cold War--when American and Russian scientists were just beginning to learn how to meet one another comfortably after working so many years in parallel, but necessarily in individual vacuums--I can personally attest that these are two truly incredible people, and that their selection by the Nobel committee was excellent and a fitting climax to an incredible century. As Erling Norrby, secretary-general of the Nobel Committee for Physics so aptly put it regarding the contributions of Kroemer and Alferov, "This will change the world into a better world."

Those of us who lived as adults through that long, tense period, when today's scientific freedom of communication, synergy, and shared human intelligence between the former Soviet Union and their allies, and America and is allies, simply did not exist, can only add... At last... the dream is closer than every thought possible, to being real. After decades of mutual apprehension and struggle, the hard-fought battle to at least unite our global scientific world is being realized. Compound semiconductor scientists from every conceivable pocket of excellence are in closer touch with one another, thanks largely to Internet communication. And the things this united community of scientists is now accomplishing, and will continue to accomplish, together, will not only continue to change the world and make it better, the unification carries with it reasonable assurance that such division and isolation need never again occurs. The accomplishments of Kroemer, Alferov, and Kilby ushered in the information age. That age is one of open communication, where truth cannot be buried nor bullied. Thanks to them, and the thousands of their peers who made it happened, the tide cannot, and will never again turn back.

Herbert Kroemer's Compound Semiconductor Work
According to his posted biography from UCSB, Professor Kroemer began working in 1962 in the area of III–V semiconductor heterostructures. His outstanding contributions to physics and technology of III–V semiconductor heterostructures, especially investigations of injection properties, development of lasers, solar cells, LEDs, and epitaxy processes have led to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics. Following work in a number of research laboratories in Germany and the USA, Kroemer persuaded the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at UCSB in 1976 to put all resources it had available for expanding their small semiconductor research program, not into mainstream silicon technology, but into the emerging compound semiconductor technology. In this field, Kroemer saw an opportunity for UCSB to become one of the leading institutions. He himself became the first member of the group, thus founding what has indeed grown into a large group that is second to none in the physics and technology of compound semiconductors and devices based on them. The other prestigious UCSB group Professor Kroemer is vitally involved with, and where some of the world's most exciting work in compound semiconductors is going on, is the Materials Department.

As stated in his bio, in his research. Prof. Kroemer has always preferred to work on problems that are one or two generations ahead of established mainstream technology. In the mid-'50-s, he was the first to point out that great performance advantages could be gained in various semiconductor devices (initially bipolar transistors) by incorporating what is now called heterojunctions into the devices. Most notably, in 1963 he proposed the concept of the double-heterostructure laser, the central concept in the field of compound semiconductor lasers, without which that field would simply not exist . These ideas were far ahead of their time, and required the development of modern epitaxial growth technology before they could become mainstream technologies, in turn providing a great stimulus towards the development of these technologies. But by 1980 the technology had progressed to the point that the 80's became a decade of "Heterostructures for Everything"— a topic that continues to dominate compound semiconductors, and is even invading mainstream Silicon technology.

After coming to UCSB, Kroemer turned to experimental work and became one of the early pioneers in molecular beam epitaxy, concentrating from the outset on applying the technology to untried new materials systems, such as GaP and GaAs on Silicon. Since 1985, his work has shifted towards the "6.1Å group" of materials, InAs, GaSb, and AlSb, a group where he saw great opportunities for future devices. All his current research involves this materials combination, in a number of projects that involve high-performance devices , materials research, and new areas of solid-state physics. His dominant current interest is in superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures involving InAs-AlSb quantum wells contacted by superconducting niobium electrodes. In such structures, the superconducting electrodes in essence induce superconductivity in the semiconductor. Of all semiconductors, InAs is the best material for the construction of such devices. With its existing leadership in InAs quantum well technology, Prof. Kroemer's group was in an unique position to exploit these possibilities. Through a number of new discoveries, the group has become the leading research group in this emerging new field of super-semi structures. Although this is basically still a solid-state physics project, the study of potential applications to future devices forms an integral part of the research.

Zhores Alferov's Compound Semiconductor Work
According to his posted biography from Ioffe, Zhores I. Alferov, who was born in Vitebsk, Belorussia, on March 15, 1930, graduated from the Department of Electronics of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad in 1952, and in 1953 became a staff member of the Physico-Technical Institute where he held consecutively the following positions: junior researcher (1953–1964), senior researcher (1964–1967), head of the laboratory (1967–1987), director (1987–present). He earned scientific degrees: a candidate of sciences in technology in 1961 and a doctor of sciences in physics and mathematics in 1970, both from the Ioffe Institute.

Since 1962 Professor Alferov has been working in the area of III–V semiconductor heterostructures at the Ioffe Institute, which belongs to the Russian Academy of Science. His outstanding contributions to physics and technology of III–V semiconductor heterostructures, especially investigations of injection properties, development of lasers, solar cells, LEDs, and epitaxy processes have led to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics. In 1973 Zh. I. Alferov took over the Chair of Optoelectronics at the St Petersburg State Electrotechnical University (former V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute) and in 1988 he was appointed to Dean of the Faculty of Physics and Technology at the St Petersburg Technical University where he currently teaches. He was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1972 and Academy's full member in 1979. From 1989 onward, he has been Vice-President of the USSR (Russian) Academy of Sciences and President of its St. Petersburg Scientific Center. According to his Russian colleagues, Professor Alferov's "obsession" is a Physical Technical High School for teenagers. He includes this school as a part of Ioffe Institute. The idea is to start to "grow" and educate physicists as early as possible, even before they begin their University years.

Ioffe Institute
Ioffe Institute was named for an academician Abram F. Ioffe and belongs to the Russian Academy of Science. Its first and main activity is R&D work in Fundamental Physics, as well as in Applied Physics. The website location for the Ioffe Institute is www.ioffe.rssi.ru/ but the site unfortunately does not yet have as much posted on its compound semiconductor work as we might like to see. An online capsule of their important compound semiconductor contributions in the area of wide bandgap research and development can be found on PhysTech-WBG home pages (WBG standing for Wide BandGap). Scientists from Ioffe have been well published and the international compound semiconductor community knows many of the individuals well, so for further detailed information on their contributions, we refer you to the numerous compound semiconductor technical conferences and publications, particularly those relating to high temperature electronics, specifically silicon carbide (SiC) and the Group III Nitrides such as gallium nitride (GaN). We also point you to an especially well-done Reuters story on the Nobel Prize winners, written this week by Will Hardie which provides additional background and insight. I can also point you to an article I authored for Elsevier's III-Vs Review in 1999 called Beyond Gallium Arsenide ... a retrospective on the development of Silicon Carbide and Gallium Nitride and role of "ICSCRM" (dubbed "Ice Cream") which is the name of the conference that first hosted the scientists from Ioffe in the USA, which I had the pleasure of attending as a journalist, where I had the singular pleasure of being the only American housed with the entire Russian delegation in Washington DC. Many of those wonderful Ioffe Russian scientists have since become good friends. One Ioffee group in particular, has since got world wide reputation as a leading research team in the field and currently is working together with a US-based wide bandgap commercial venture called Technologies and Devices International, Inc. Vladimir Dmitriev is a president of TDI, Inc. Dmitriev's team was one of the first to work directly with American Entrepreneurs at Cree Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) in that company's early stages of SiC development. TDI's website is simply, www.tdii.com where even more information can be found. Another Russian/American SiC entrepreneurial group was founded by a team that included Nikolay Yushin, who came to the venture via Ioffe and later its subsidiary, FTIKKS. Nikolay and his colleagues established their company in the USA as Sterling Semiconductor and earlier this year, Sterling was acquired by Uniroyal Technologies (Nasdaq: UTCI). Sterling's website is another source to check for more information and contacts: www.sterlingsemiconductor.com. TDI's Vladimir Dmitriev received his Doctor of Sciences degree from Ioffe Institute in 1996, and Sterling's Nikolay Yushin received his in 1989.

The St. Petersburg Universities
St. Petersburg State Technical University is the other especially noteworthy Russian institute where Professor Alferov has done his outstanding work over the years. St. Petersburg State Technical University was formerly the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and also belongs to Russian Ministry of Education. Since Abram Ioffe's time, there is a close cooperation between the Ioffe Institute and St. Petersburg State. Continuing a fine tradition, Professor Alferov is teaching undergraduate students in the Technical University as well as in Electrotechnical University (formerly Ulyanov-Lenin Electrotechnical Institute). Another famous compound semi pioneer catalyst is Professor Tairov who is well known to many international CS industry people. Professor Tairov is on the staff of the St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University (formerly Ulyanov-Lenin Electrotechnical Institute). The compound semiconductor faculty and staffs at each of these fine Russian institutions have been very instrumental in helping unite our field.