October 10, 2000
Nobel Prizes for Physics and
Chemistry Announced
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
Three scientists who pioneered
work on the microchip and
semiconductors won the Nobel
Prize for physics today, a
recognition of their fundamental
roles in the creation of the computer age and an instant
electronic world of mobile phones, CD players,
bar-code readers and the Internet.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which
chooses the science and economics awards, also
announced the chemistry prize today, singling out two
Americans and a Japanese scientist for discovering that
plastics can conduct electricity, leading to
developments involving photographic film, computer
screen shields and "smart" windows that can block
sunlight.
The winners of the physics prize are Zhores I. Alferov,
director of the A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in
St. Petersburg, Russia, and Herbert Kroemer of the
University of California at Santa Barbara, Calif., who
will each receive a quarter of the $915,000 prize; and
Jack S. Kilby, a longtime scientist at Texas Instruments,
who will receive half the prize.
Unlike past awards for theoretical and abstract
advances, this year's prize went to men whose work
deeply changed the every day world. "Through their
inventions this year's Nobel laureates in physics have
laid a stable foundation for modern information
technology," the academy said.
Mr. Kilby, 76, was honored for his role in inventing the
integrated circuit, or computer chip. "Through this
invention microelectronics has grown to become the
basis of modern technology," the academy said, citing
powerful computers and processors which control
washing machines and cars, space probes and medical
diagnostic equipment.
"The microchip has also led to our environment being
flooded with small electronic apparatuses, anything
from electronic watches and TV games to
mini-calculators and personal computers," the academy
said.
Mr. Kilby, who holds more than 60 United States
patents, built the first electronic circuit just after
starting at Texas Instruments in 1958, and also headed
teams that created the hand-held calculator. The circuit
replaced the bulky transistor, and allowed electronic
devices to shrink immeasurably.
"I don't know that the information age has one father,"
he told reporters outside his home in Dallas. "I think it
has a lot of fathers. A lot of contributions have gone
into it."
Mr. Kilby also expressed surprise that his work would
be honored with the physics prize.
"I had thought that Nobel prizes were not given for
accomplishments like mine. To some extent, my
contribution was an engineering one and Mr. Nobel did
not make any provisions for engineering prizes," he
said.
He also expressed humility before the vast unknown to
which his work opened the door.
"Certainly for some time we're in for more of the same.
Electronics will continue to get cheaper and there will
be new applications coming along, which I don't think
I've visualized very well," he said, according to the
Reuters news agency.
Hand-in-hand with the computer revolution came the
telecommunications revolution, a fact recognized by
giving shares of the award to Mr. Kroemer, born in
Germany in 1928, and Mr. Alferov, born in the Soviet
Union in 1930.
The two were cited for separately developing and
inventing layered semiconductor structures, called
"semiconductor heterostructures." The structures give
rise to super-fast transistors and semiconductor lasers,
which "are playing a decisive part in modern
telecommunications," the academy said.
These transistors are used in satellite communications
and mobile phone connections. And such
semiconductor lasers are used in fibre-optics, CD
reading heads and bar-code readers
Mr. Alferov, 70, said he expected the award "maybe a
very little bit," The Associated Press reported. The
first Russian to win a Nobel since Mikhail Gorbachev
in 1990 and also a member of the Communist Party, Mr.
Alferov said he would immediately appeal for more
state spending on science.
The chemistry prize winners were Alan J. Heeger and
Alan G. MacDiarmid of the United States and Hideki
Shirakawa of Japan.
Plastic was long considered to only be an insulator,
rather than conductor. But the three scientists
discovered in the late 1970s that an electric current
could pass through plastic after the material was
modified.
The scientists discovered that a thin film of a kind of
plastic could be oxidized, vastly increasing its
electrical conductivity. The discovery has led to
polymers that reduce static electricity, which can
interfere with photographic film and computer screens.
In addition to the practical applications in windows,
computers and film, the academy said the work has
contributed to advances in small television screens and
has helped speed advances in molecular electronics.
Dr. Heeger, 64, was born in Iowa and is currently a
professor of physics at the University of California,
Santa Barbara. Dr. MacDiarmid, 73, was born in New
Zealand but is an American citizen and professor of
chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Shirakawa, 64, was born in Tokyo and is a
professor of chemistry at the University of Tsukuba. He
transformed polyacetylene into a metallic-looking film
by accident in the early 1970s, when he added too much
catalyst in a chemical reaction.
At the time, Dr. MacDiarmid and Dr. Heeger were also
working on a polymer that gleamed like silver. Dr.
Shirakawa met Dr. MacDiarmid by chance at a coffee
break during a Tokyo conference. When the men heard
about each other's discoveries they began working
together. The three men learned how to oxidize
polyacetylene and give it metallic properties and then
published their discovery in 1977.
The economics prize will be announced Wednesday,
the literature prize on Thursday and the peace prize on
Friday. On Monday, Arvid Carlsson of Sweden, Paul
Greengard and Eric Kandel, both of the United States,
won the medicine prize for their discovery of how
messages are transmitted between brain cells.