He also became a politician in his later life, serving in the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, as a member of the Communist Party from 1995.

Semiconductor heterojunctions transistors enabled higher frequency use than their homojunction predecessors, and this capability plays a key role in modern mobile phone and satellite communications.

[6]: 163–167  This achievement came a month ahead of Izuo Hayashi and Morton Panish of Bell Labs also producing a continuous-wave room-temperature heterojunction laser.

[9] It was for this work that Alferov received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Herbert Kroemer, "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics".

[10] Hermann Grimmeiss of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards Nobel prizes, said: "Without Alferov, it would not be possible to transfer all the information from satellites down to the Earth or to have so many telephone lines between cities.

[6]: 196 Alferov worked to foster relationships between early educational institutions and scientific research institutions to train the next generation of scientists, citing Peter the Great's vision for the Russian Academy of Sciences to be organized with a scientific research core in close contact with a gymnasium (secondary school).

In the 2000s, through his role in academic administration and in parliament, Alferov advocated for and worked to advance Russia's nanotechnology sector.

In 2006, Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov announced the creation of a federal agency, Rosnanotekh to pursue nanotechnology applications.

Alferov was elected to the Russian Parliament, the State Duma, in 1995 as a deputy for the political party Our Home – Russia, generally considered to be supportive of the policies of President Boris Yeltsin.

[19] He was one of the signers of the open letter to President Vladimir Putin from members of the Russian Academy of Sciences against clericalisation of Russia.