Martin Andrew Green (born 20 July 1948) is an Australian engineer who specialises in photovoltaics. He is a Scientia professor of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he directs the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. Green is best known for his development of the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC) in 1983, a technology that significantly increased the conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells, reduced the cost of solar energy and powers over 90% of all solar panels globally today. He is widely considered the "father of modern photovoltaics", and has won many prizes and awards achievements such as Pawsey Medal in 1981, the M. A. Sargent Medal in 1994, the Japan Prize in 2021 and the Millennium Technology Prize in 2022. Green is one of the world's most highly cited researchers (top 0.1% in field) and has been an author or co-author of over 800 research papers in the field of photovoltaics. He is editor-in-chief of the academic journal Progress in Photovoltaics and holds fellowships with the Royal Society of London, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and the Royal Society of New South Wales.
Early life and education Martin Andrew Green was born in Camp Hill, Queensland on 20 July 1948. He was educated at the selective Brisbane State High School, where he graduated as dux of the school in 1965. At the University of Queensland, he completed a Bachelor of Engineering in1970 and a Master of Engineering in 1972. He then completed his PhD on a Commonwealth Scholarship at McMaster University in Canada, supervised by John Shewchun, where he demonstrated that traditional silicon solar cell p-n junctions could be advantageously replaced by tunnelling metal-insulator-semiconductor structures.
Research In 1974, at the University of New South Wales, he set up the Australia's first solar research lab, the Solar Photovoltaics Group, which worked on the development of silicon solar cells. In the late 1970s, his group was developing world record cell voltages by using tunnel oxide passivated contacts (now known as TOPCon). In 1983, using the tunnelling approach, Green and Andrew Blakers developed the first 18% efficient silicon cell, surpassing the previous record of 16.5%. Since then, his team has developed the world's first 19%, 20%, 21%, 23%, 24% and 25% efficient silicon cells, which were amongst his 14 successive world records in the area. In 1983, he developed the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC), a solar cell with passivated emitter and rear surfaces. In 1989, his team published the first paper on PERC technology, which had 22.8% efficiency, the highest ever reported for a silicon cell. As of 2021, his PERC solar cell that he invented accounts for 91.2% of worldwide silicon solar module production. In 1984, he developed the buried contact solar cell at UNSW with Stuart Wenham, produced 30% more energy than competing technologies and 20% cheaper to produce. In the 1990s, the technology was the largest manufactured solar cell technology in Europe. Green has also made several theoretical contributions to the field, including the first identification of Auger Recombination as placing the most severe bounds on silicon cell performance, developing the methodology to calculate these bounds and discussing cell designs capable of limiting performance. He was also the first to explore "non-ergodic" light trapping schemes based on the crystallographically-defined pyramidal structures used in all modern silicon cells. Green has supervised over 120 PhD students who have contributed to the field of photovoltaics, including:
Andrew Blakers who helped develop the first 18% efficient silicon cell Stuart Wenham who developed the use of lasers in cell processing and the large-scale commercialisation of copper plating Richard Corkish, the CEO of the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics Alistair Sproul, Head of School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW Shi Zhengrong, Chairman and CEO of Suntech Power Aihua Wang and Jianhua Zhao who worked on the PERC technology which they won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for and founders of China Sunergy Ximing Dai, Chief Technology Officer for JA Solar Holdings Xiaojing Hao, Professor of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW Green is currently the editor-in-chief of the academic journal Progress in Photovoltaics.
Awards and honours
Awards Green has received many awards including:
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