Zhores I. Alferov was born in Vitebsk, Belorussia, USSR, on March 15, 1930. In 1952, he graduated from the Department of Electronics of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad. Since 1953 he has been 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 he has been working 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, LED's, 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.

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.

For his research Professor Zh. I. Alferov was awarded a number of national and international prizes:

• Ballantyne Medal of the Franklin Institute (USA, 1971),
• Lenin Prize (USSR, 1972),
• Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize (1978),
• State Prize (USSR, 1984),
• GaAs Symposium Award and H. Welker Medal (1987),
• Karpinskii Prize (FRG, 1989),
• Ioffe Prize (Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996).
• Nicholas Holonyak, Jr. Award (2000)
• The Nobel Prize for Physics (2000)
• Kyoto Prize – Advanced Technology (2001)

and honorary memberships:

• Life Fellow of the Franklin Institute (USA, 1971),
• Foreign Member of the German Academy of Sciences (1987),
• Honorary Professor of the Havana University (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 Metrological Academy (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 for Semiconductor Science and Technology (1996),
• Honorary Academician of the International Academy of Refrigeration (St Petersburg, 1997),
• Academician of the International Academy of Ecology, Man and Nature Protection Sciences (St Petersburg, 1998),
• Honorary Doctor of the Humanity University (St Petersburg, 1998).
• Honorary Doctor of the Kurchatov Institute (Moscow, 1998),
• Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine, 2000),
• Honorary Professor of the State Technical University (St Petersburg, 2000),
• Fellow of the Optical Society of America (USA, 2000),
• Honorary Professor of the State Electrotechnical University (LETI) (St Petersburg, 2001),
• Honorary Professor of the Moscow State University (Moscow, 2001).

He is Editor-in-Chief of a Russian journal, Pis'ma v Zhurnal Tekhnicheskoi Fiziki (English-language version—Technical Physics Letters) and a member of the Editorial Board of a Russian journal Nauka i Zhizn' (Science and Life).

Zh. I. Alferov is author of 4 books, 400 articles, and 50 inventions on semiconductor technology.