Alfred Yi Cho is the Adjunct Vice President of Semiconductor Research at Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs. He is known as the "father of molecular beam epitaxy"; a technique he developed at that facility in the late 1960s. He is also the co-inventor, with Federico Capasso of quantum cascade lasers at Bell Labs in 1994. Alfred Y. Cho was born on 10 July 1937 in Beijing, China. He received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois in 1960, 1961, and 1968, respectively. He is Director of the Semiconductor Research Laboratory at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey. Dr. Cho joined Bell Laboratories after completing his studies in 1968. In the 1970s, his research produced innovations that revolutionized the semiconductor industry.

He is recognized as the co-inventor and principal developer of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a technique for growing and layering atom-size thin films, creating new materials nature cannot duplicate. This ultra-high vacuum process is now used worldwide to manufacture electronic and optoelectronic semiconductor chips. Dr. Cho received Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Medal of Honor in 1994, the National Medal of Science, presented by President Clinton in 1993. He is an IEEE Fellow, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.