Martin Andrew Green AM FRS FAA (born 20 July 1948) is an Australian engineer and professor at the University of New South Wales who works on solar energy.[2][3][4][5][6][7] He was awarded the 2021 Japan Prize for his achievements in the "Development of High-Efficiency Silicon Photovoltaic Devices".[8] He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Progress in Photovoltaics.[9]
Martin Green | |
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Born | Martin Andrew Green 20 July 1948 Brisbane, Australia |
Citizenship | Australian |
Alma mater |
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Awards |
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Scientific career | |
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Thesis | Properties and applications of the metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) tunnel diode (1974) |
Doctoral advisor | John Shewchun[1] |
Website | research |
Green was born in Brisbane on 20 July 1948,[10] and was educated at the selective Brisbane State High School, graduated from University of Queensland and completed his PhD on a Commonwealth Scholarship at McMaster University in Canada, where he specialised in solar energy. In 1974, at the University of New South Wales, he initiated the Solar Photovoltaics Group which soon worked on the development of silicon solar cells.[2] The group had their success in the early 80s through producing a 20% efficient silicon cell, which now has been improved to 25%.
Green has published several books on solar cells both for popular science and deep research. The "buried contact solar cell" was developed at UNSW in 1984.[11] Green also served on the Board of the Sydney-based Pacific Solar Pty Ltd (later known as CSG Solar), as Research Director. Green's portrait was painted with fellow scientist Ross Garnaut for the Archibald Prize 2010. The painting was a finalist, losing to a portrait of Tim Minchin.
Green has received several awards including:
His nomination for the Royal Society reads:
Professor Green is cited for his extensive and distinguished contributions to photovoltaic science and technology. These include identifying the fundamental limits upon silicon solar cell performance and then leading his team to demonstrate experimental devices approaching this limit, with 25% cell efficiency now demonstrated. This is over 50% relatively higher in performance than at the beginning of his work. He has also developed innovative commercial versions of these high performance devices and pioneered the field of "third generation" photovoltaics, investigating advanced photovoltaic device concepts targeting Carnot-like solar conversion efficiencies.[15][dead link]