Lenin’s Laureate Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology Jed Z. Buchwald, general editor Dolores L. Augustine, Red Prometheus: Engineering and Dictatorship in East Germany, 1945–1990 Lawrence Badash, A Nuclear Winter’s Tale: Science and Politics in the 1980s Mordechai Feingold, editor, Jesuit Science and the Republic of Letters Larrie D. Ferreiro, Ships and Science: The Birth of Naval Architecture in the Scientifi c Revolution, 1600–1800 Sander Gliboff, H. G. Bronn, Ernst Haeckel, and the Origins of German Darwinism: A Study in Translation and Transformation Niccolò Guicciardini, Isaac Newton on Mathematical Certainty and Method Kristine Harper, Weather by the Numbers: The Genesis of Modern Meteorology Sungook Hong, Wireless: From Marconi’s Black-B ox to the Audion Jeff Horn, The Path Not Taken: French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1830 Myles W. Jackson, Harmonious Triads: Physicists, Musicians, and Instrument Makers in Nineteenth-C entury Germany Myles W. Jackson, Spectrum of Belief: Joseph von Fraunhofer and the Craft of Precision Optics Mi Gyung Kim, Affi nity, That Elusive Dream: A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution Ursula Klein and Wolfgang Lefèvre, Materials in Eighteenth- Century Science: A Histori- cal Ontology John Krige, American Hegemony and the Postwar Reconstruction of Science in Europe Janis Langins, Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban to the Revolution Wolfgang Lefèvre, editor, Picturing Machines 1400–1700 Staffan Müller-W ille and Hans-J örg Rheinberger, editors, Heredity Produced: At the Crossroads of Biology, Politics, and Culture, 1500–1870 William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, editors, Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe Gianna Pomata and Nancy G. Siraisi, editors, Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early Modern Europe Alan J. Rocke, Nationalizing Science: Adolphe Wurtz and the Battle for French Chemistry George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance Suman Seth, Crafting the Quantum: Arnold Sommerfeld and the Practice of Theory, 1890–1926 Nicolás Wey Gómez, The Tropics of Empire: Why Columbus Sailed South to the Indies Paul R. Josephson, Lenin’s Laureate: Zhores Alferov’s Life in Communist Science Lenin’s Laureate Zhores Alferov’s Life in Communist Science Paul R. Josephson The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2010 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about quantity discounts, email [email protected]. Set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by Graphic Composition, Inc. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data Josephson, Paul R. Lenin’s laureate : Zhores Alferov’s life in communist science / Paul R. Josephson. p. cm. — (Transformations : studies in the history of science and technology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01458-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Alferov, Zh. I. 2. Physicists— Russia (Federation)—Biography. 3. Physics—Russia (Federation)—History. 4. Science and state—Russia (Federation)—History. I. Title. QC16.A3417J67 2010 509.47'0904—dc22 2010005431 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Introduction 1 1 Childhood 15 2 Heroes and Hero Projects 57 3 Research and Reforms 109 4 From Transistors to Heterojunctions 153 5 Perestroika and Politics 177 6 Scholar, Laureate, and Statesman 215 Afterword and Acknowledgments 267 Notes 271 Index 301 Introduction When you look at the lights on your alarm clock or stop at a traffi c signal, more than likely you see light- emitting diodes in action. LEDs consume 80 or 90 percent less energy than incandescent lights, and they last years longer. In addition to LEDs, in everyday life we encounter semiconductor lasers, solar cells, and transistors in a variety of communications and en- ergy electronics—for example, CD players and mobile phones. These items refl ect the practical applications of the heterojunction, a kind of semicon- ductor device that operates with very high effi ciency at room temperature. The heterojunction was developed in the 1960s by a small number of phys- icists working in various countries. One of them, Zhores Ivanovich Alferov, shared the Nobel Prize in 2000 for his development of the heterojunction. As of this writing, in 2010, the 80-y ear- old Alferov, based in St. Peters- burg, remains active in research in the science of nanostructures and as a university educator, simultaneously serving in the Russian Parliament as a member of the Communist minority. Alferov believes that his role in the Parliament is to use his authority as a Nobel laureate to save Russian science and technology from further losses of funding, personnel, and research capacity—that is, losses beyond those that occurred immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Alferov’s life and career illustrate the rise of Soviet science and technology, the challenges that scientists endured in cre- ating the largest research- and- development apparatus in the world, and the diffi culties Russian scientists face today in securing funding for research. By 1948, when he graduated from high school in Minsk with a gold medal, Alferov had demonstrated many of the personality traits that are essential to a career as a scientist. His teachers saw that he had a dedicated and disciplined mind, mastered diffi cult concepts easily, had immediate re- call of relevant literature, and was capable of penetrating analysis. Alferov had not yet chosen a specifi c fi eld of research, but he had a strong interest in electronics. 2 Introduction After World War II, under Joseph Stalin, the USSR engaged in a massive rebuilding program in which electrifi cation was a central aspect. Alferov, like many other students, played a small part in that program, serving dur- ing his sophomore year in a brigade whose mission was to design and to build—largely by hand—the tiny Krasnoborsk hydroelectric power station in Leningrad province, which was to provide power for local industry. He then won a research prize that entitled him to visit any one of Stalin’s “hero projects.” He chose the Tsimliansk Dam on the Don River, whose huge size confi rmed for him the glories of communist construction. These experiences convinced him to enter graduate school in the hope of making a personal contribution to the USSR’s electrifi cation programs. After receiving a BS degree at the Leningrad Electrical Technical Insti- tute, Alferov considered a wide range of fi rst- rate institutes for his graduate work. Since 1917, when they had seized power, the Bolsheviks had under- written the establishment of dozens of physics, chemistry, metallurgical, biological, and other institutes. The Cold War brought another burst of ac- tivity as new institutions, many of them connected with nuclear weapons research, were created. The nuclear enterprise attracted some of the best students; others were simply ordered to enlist in the closed, secret facilities. Alferov was determined to stick to electronics. He found a home and a ca- reer at the foremost center for research in solid state physics, the Leningrad Physical Technical Institute, which he entered at the beginning of 1953, shortly before Stalin’s death. There, in the 1960s, he completed studies on heterostructures of gallium arsenide, later becoming director of the labora- tory and then of the institute. Many of the stories of the personalities of modern science focus exclu- sively on genius as the source of inspiration. What forces shape modern science? The qualities of the individual researcher (Alferov possessed math- ematical aptitude, the ability to synthesize, and originality) enable a young scholar to embark on a career in physics, chemistry, biology, or mathemat- ics. We commonly believe that the individual scientist, stimulated by col- leagues or more generally by developments in a fi eld of research yet also inspired by some internal logic or insight, is the prime engine of scientifi c discovery. Alferov surely shared many of these characteristics. Yet by the early years of the twentieth century science had become “big science”—the science of research institutes, expensive apparatuses, and ex- tensive government support. Such leading industrial companies as General Electric, DuPont, Westinghouse, and I.G. Farben had established laborato- ries in support of their business activities.1 At universities, scientists, driven by the increasing costs of research and by diffi culties they encountered in Introduction 3 attacking the conundrums of modern science alone, successfully lobbied their governments and such newly established philanthropies as the Rock- efeller Foundation for supplementary budgets, and began to work collabo- ratively in larger and larger teams. 2 Theoretical scientists were not immune from the need for team research using expensive equipment, but came to work closely with experimentalists who used such devices as particle ac- celerators and reactors to study subatomic processes and verify theoretical advances. In Alferov’s fi eld of research, these included devices for molecu- lar beam epitaxy and metalorganic chemical vapor disposition developed in the 1960s and the 1970s. The modern state played an important role in fi nancing and shaping science. By the end of World War I, policy makers had recognized the need to support researchers to improve the increasingly industrial nature of military performance. By the end of World War II, with the big projects of rocketry, radar, and atomic weaponry, they recognized the necessity of assembling huge collectives of researchers in national laboratories, uni- versities, and industrial facilities, and not only for national security but also for public health, economic stability, and even simply for the sake of science. 3 These national laboratories—Los Alamos, Argonne, Brookhaven, and Oak Ridge in the United States; the various Max Planck (formerly Kai- ser Wilhelm) institutes in Germany; Arzamas-1 6, the Kurchatov Institute for Atomic Energy, and the Leningrad Physical Technical Institute in the former Soviet Union; and many others—remain icons of scientifi c excel- lence and state power. Perhaps nowhere was government support so critical to the develop- ment of modern science as it was in the USSR. In 1917, on the eve of the Revolution, Russia was a kind of scientifi c colony of Europe. Its scien- tists frequently traveled to Germany and France to undertake research in modern laboratories and to complete their doctorates. The tsarist govern- ment had a narrow understanding of science’s contribution to national well-b eing. Russian laboratories were poorly equipped for lack of support, and government bureaucrats often interfered in the hiring and fi ring of re- searchers on the basis of politics. The vast majority of the empire’s citizens were illiterate, living on the edge of agricultural failure in a countryside far removed from urban, industrial lifestyles. A few philanthropies had been established, but they were relatively small and they focused most of their activities on areas other than science. Upon seizing power in October of 1917, the Bolsheviks set out to create socialist institutions in the economy, in the educational system, in the arts, and in the sciences. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Nikolai Bukharin, and