Nobel Laureate Zhores Alferov has died at age 88

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MOSCOW. KAZINFORM Soviet and Russian academic, Nobel Laureate, State Duma (lower house) deputy Zhores Alferov has died at age 88. Shortly before dying he wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on scientific development in Russia, the Communist Party's leader Gennady Zyuganov told TASS on Saturday.

"I visited him in the hospital, he was completing treatment. It seemed to me that he was feeling fine. He had prepared a letter to President and Prime Minister on scientific development," he said.

"He created such an amazing academic institution where young talented mathematicians are able to integrate knowledge working on cutting-edge equipment," Zyuganov said. "As a deputy, as a person he assumed endless efforts to fortify (the Russian) science and education, he was Ambassador for Peace from our country, he had a lot of friends from all over the world, including from America," the politician said, adding that Alferov "contributed his talent to making Skolkovo the foundry of best technologies and manpower."

Zhores Alferov was born in Vitebsk on March 30, 1930. After completing high school, he was enrolled at Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad without entrance exams, and graduated from it with honors in 1952. He was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1972, and a full member in 1979.

In 2000, Alferov received the Nobel Prize in Physics together with US scientists Jack Kilby and Herbert Kroemer, "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed-and optoelectronics".

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