"In 2000, the Russian scientist Zhores Alferov shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the heterojunction, a semiconductor device the practical applications of which include light-emitting diodes, rapid transistors, and the microchip. Alferov's Nobel Prize was the culmination of a career that spanned the eras of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev--and continues today in the post-…