The Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 2000 has been awarded to three scientists who laid the basic foundations for semiconductor devices used in information and communication technology today. According to the official press release issued by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, one half of the prize has been jointly awarded to Zhores I Alferov (A F Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia) and Herbert Kroemer (University of California at Santa Barbara, USA) for "developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics" while the other half of the prize goes to Jack S Kilby (Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas, USA) for "his part in the invention of the integrated circuit". In awarding this prize, the Nobel committee has rightly recognized the importance of basic research that has made the modern information technology revolution possible.

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Address for Correspondence
V Venkataraman,
Department of Physics,
Indian Institute of Science,
Bangalore 560012, India