Solar energy is our future, says Nobel Prize winner

19 May, 2009, 10:10

Mobile phones, CD players, and satellite TV are all technology that most of us use every day. But it wouldn’t have been possible without the inventions of Russian physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Zhores Alferov.

RT: One of the things you’re best-known for is the heterotransistor. Many people will never have heard of it even though they use it every day. Why is it so important and how did you end up developing it?

Zhores Alferov: I think the vast majority of the literate population, even those who didn’t major in technical or physical areas, know the word ‘semiconductor’. Semiconductor devices were the foundation of what’s called “information and computer technologies” today.

For example, when you take a CD or DVD and insert it into a player, the data from the disc is retrieved through a tiny semiconductor laser, which acts like the needle in vinyl players. CDs and DVDs are used everywhere around the world. Without the semiconductor laser, you wouldn’t be able to use them. When you use your mobile phone, the main amplifier in it is a heterostructure-based transistor. Mobile phones would probably exist without heterostructures anyway, but the quality would be far inferior.

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When our MIR space station was in orbit, it was powered via heterostructure-based solar batteries that have a far better efficiency.

I came to know heterostructures in the early 60s.

Heterostructures are semiconductor materials in which you change the chemical composition and all basic properties. An old friend of mine, Leo Isaki, a Japanese physicist who received the 1973 Nobel Award in physics for discovering tunnel effects in semiconductors, once said that all crystals fall into two big categories: man-made crystals and God-made crystals. God-made crystals are silicon, germanium, and other semiconductor materials. No matter if they are produced in laboratories, they are still God-made crystals because they can be found in nature, and they still have the same properties as nature intended. As for heterostructures, their chemical composition gets changed so much that their properties change altogether, resulting in crystals that never existed in nature before. Those are man-made crystals. There was a physician who worked abroad, Herbert Kroemer, who also did a lot of theoretical work on the same subject. We later shared the Nobel Prize with him, in 2000.

RT: Did you expect this or was it a surprise?

Z.A.: I didn’t know but I could guess that I was among the nominees for the Nobel Prize. In 1996, the Swedish Academy of Science and the Nobel Physics Committee held a special Nobel symposium in Sweden on semiconducting heterostructures.

They invited Herbert Kroemer and myself as the main speakers for the opening ceremony. I guess it was a kind of a sign for me. And I remember that when the Nobel Prize was awarded to me, the first person to express his congratulations was Herbert Kroemer. Both of us received the Nobel Prize.

He wrote an e-mail saying that, in his opinion, we should’ve met at the Award ceremony back in 1996. So, in a way, it did come as a surprise, but, on the other hand – not really.

RT: Is that the award that means most to you?

Z.A.: This is indeed the most prestigious award in science. It means a lot for a scientist.

It did change the mode of my life – I now have to do more public speaking, give more lectures, and attend more events. In fact, I have so many invitations that if I was to attend each and every one of them, I would need to be on the road the whole year round. I only accept 2-3 per cent of all the invitations, and it can still be quite a work-load.

Doctor Zhores Alferov, left, receives the Nobel Prize in physics from Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, right, at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, 10 December 2000 (AFP Photo / Henrik Montgomery)

But, on the other hand, there are now more opportunities. There is no higher award than this one. My first international award came to me in 1971, and it’s also a very dear one to me – the Gold Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in the USA. It is significant because previously it was awarded to Pyotr Kapitsa and afterwards – to Nikolay Bogolyubov and Andrey Sakharov. It’s nice to be in the company of such Great Russian scientists. Another special award is the Lenin award that I received in 1972, together with my students. Actually, my students have contributed greatly to my work, but the Nobel Prize rules are different. When we received the Lenin award, we could go as the six of us.

RT: You’ve been carrying out research since Soviet times. How different was it working as a scientist then compared to now?

Z.A.: Definitely, science played a much greater role in the life of the country during Soviet times than it does today. So, in many aspects, it was easier. But, at the same time, international partnerships and our participation in international projects was much more limited. The positive aspects of today can be narrowed down to opportunities to participate in international projects, making trips, etc. As for the negative sides: we do not have a high-technology industry in Russia any more and there is no real demand for our scientific results.

One of the major problems is the lack of demand for scientific results of Russian science in the Russian economy. That’s because during the years of reform, we basically destroyed a high-technology industry that had significant connections with the military-industrial complex of Soviet times.

It was those ministries that provided about 60 pre cent of civil high-tech production. Today we are in a post-industrial world and in a very peculiar situation since we ourselves ruined our own industry. Our main task now is to revive the high-tech branches of the industry – microelectronics and informational technologies, since this is the trend that defines scientific, technological and social progress in a society. This is something we need to fight for. And we will – so that it comes true. I remain an optimist and even like to make some jokes about this, like – Russia is a country of optimists, because all pessimists have already left.

RT: You are now working in the Russian Parliament as a State Duma deputy. Are there any similarities between the worlds of physics and politics?

Z.A.: I’ve always made it clear that I would only be in politics as part of the Science and Education Committee, and work on ways of using the State Duma and the Parliament to support science and education. All my political activity is tied to this, first and foremost.

Physics Nobel Price winner Zhores I. Alferov of Russia (AFP Photo / EPA / Pressens Bild / Henrik Montgomery)

I talk to people and try to get money for scientific research. For example, last year I was asked to speak at the opening of the State Duma session as I was the oldest deputy there. I addressed my speech to Zubkov, our Prime Minister at the time. I said there should be a lot of money allocated to science and gave an example – once upon a time, back in the 19th century, Sir Gladstone, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, visited Faraday’s laboratory and asked – “What will we do with your discoveries in the field of electricity?” Faraday replied – “Mr. Gladstone, you’ll be collecting taxes.” I think it’s impossible to imagine a modern civilization without electricity. And that’s what I said to Zubkov – I said that they would be getting plenty of money coming in taxes due to our research in the field of nanotechnologies and in the physics of heterostructures. But for that, we would need to have money for our research.

Sometimes politics help. But you see, it’s not all that simple.

Actually, getting the Nobel Prize helped. When I learned that I was going to be awarded the Nobel Prize, the State Duma asked me to give a speech the day after I received the news; I talked a lot about the value of science. And that year, the science budget was increased by 10%. My Nobel Prize immediately provided almost 100 million dollars for the development of Russian science. I later made a joke that it would be great if Russian scientists got the Nobel Prize annually, because then the science budget would grow each year. But we do need to have more Nobel Prize laureates in Russia.

RT: What are you working on these days?

Z.A.: These days, my students have developed solar batteries with a 40% efficiency factor. I think that in 20-30 years, a significant percentage of electric power in the world will be produced by solar batteries. In outer space, this is the main kind of energy today. There are people who think that by the end of the 21st century, 60-70% of electricity will be obtained through transforming solar energy, and heterostructure-based solar batteries are the most efficient type for that.

I think the thing of the future is bio-nanotechnological research – and we have even created a special laboratory for that. Using heterostructures in biology and medicine – and you know that physics have already given a lot to modern medicine, and can give much more – and borderline research as well as interconnections between different areas and branches of science, or what is now called “nanotechnology”, in a broad sense – all this can bring a lot of results. I am highly interested in this area of science and although I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything big there, I will do whatever it takes to facilitate its development.

Nowadays personally I am not involved in any scientific research as such. I am an experimentalist. To be involved in research is to work in a laboratory. Sadly, I don’t do this any more. To my great regret, I just don’t have time. Now, my participation in scientific research has been narrowed down to discussions, disputes and choosing the most promising and upcoming trends. I also work a lot in our Institute and in the recently opened and, thus, very specific Academic University (it’s a small university with only Master’s degrees and Post-graduate programs). We prepare highly-qualified specialists in line with some custom-made programs. I get the pleasure of meeting and talking with science-oriented students, post-graduates, and young people. It’s a big part of my life.

RT: How does it feel when you realize that many people on the planet use your inventions all the time in their every day life?

Z.A.: Well, it’s all very good. I think this is an ideal case for a scientific worker when his scientific research can be widely applied daily. I would also like to note everything we use in our everyday life is actually a scientific achievement. There would be no modern civilization without science.