Antonio Luque López

This article is about the scientist. For the footballer, see José Antonio Luque Ramírez.
Antonio Luque López

Antonio Luque
Born (1941-08-15)August 15, 1941
Malaga
Nationality Spanish
Fields Photovoltaic energy
Institutions Technical University of Madrid
Alma mater Technical University of Madrid
Thesis The construction of a ruby laser and a study of its output over time (1967)
Notable students Gabriel Sala, Eduardo Lorenzo, Juan Carlos Miñano, Gabino Almonacid, Juan Carlos Jimeno, Antonio Martí.
Known for Bifacial solar cell, intermediate band solar cell, solar concentration techniques
Notable awards Spanish National Research Prize (twice), EC Becquerel prize, King Jaime I prize, IEEE William Cherry prize, SolarWorld Einstein prize, Karl Böer Medal

Antonio Luque López (born Málaga, 15 August 1941) is a Spanish scientist and entrepreneur in the field of photovoltaic solar energy. He is director of the Institute of Solar Energy at the Technical University of Madrid.

Academic career

Luque graduated in Telecommunications Engineering at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) in 1964, and obtained a Diplôme d'Études Approfondies in Solid State Physics at the University of Toulouse. In 1967 he completed his Ph.D. at UPM. A result of his Ph.D. work was the first laser constructed in Spain in 1966, today kept at UPM's "Joaquin Serna" Museum for the History of Telecommunications. He became Professor of Physical Electronics at the School of Telecommunication Engineering at UPM in 1970, and in 1979 founded the Institute of Solar Energy at the same university.

His scientific work has been particularly directed towards reducing the cost of solar energy. He is the inventor of the bifacial solar cell (1976)[1] and the intermediate band solar cell (1997).[2] He has worked extensively on solar concentration - optical methods for focussing the sun's rays more intensely on to the cells - and in 1988 presented the first monograph in English on this topic;[3] he also chairs the international scientific committee at the Institute for Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (Isfoc), which opened in July 2006 in Puertollano.[4]

He has been awarded the title of doctor honoris causa by the University of Jaén and by the Charles III University of Madrid, both in 2005, and by the University of Málaga in 2014. He is honorary member of the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg. He is a member of the Engineering Academies of Russia and Belarus. He has been a member of the advisory committee of the Hahn-Meitner Institute in Berlin since 2004, a member of the advisory council of the French National Institute for Solar Energy since 2005, and a member of the scientific advisory council of CASP (Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics) – part of the United States Department of Energy - since 2009. In 2011 he was admitted to membership of the Russian Academy of Science.

Between 2003-08 he coordinated the "Fullspectrum" project for developing methods to make more efficient use of the full solar spectrum.[5] Since 2013 he has coordinated the research and development programme into intermediate band cells at the Ioffe Institute. He is also coordinating the NGCPV programme, a joint EU-Japan initiative on solar energy.[6]

He has supervised over 30 doctoral theses, including those of several researchers who were to become prominent in the fields of systems engineering and photovoltaic equipment, such as Gabriel Sala, Eduardo Lorenzo, Juan Carlos Miñano, Gabino Almonacid, Juan Carlos Jimeno, and Antonio Martí.

Publications

Luque has published 163 articles in international scientific journals, and 269 at international conferences; two books in Spanish and five in English, including the “Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering";[7] and 21 contributions to books in English. He has taken out 22 patents. He is on the editorial panel of four international scientific journals. His most frequently cited publication[8] has been cited over 800 times.

Business links

In 1981 Luque started the Isofotón company, manufacturing photovoltaic units in Málaga, and was its chairman until 1989.[9]

In 2006 he founded Centesil, a public-private partnership, to develop manufacturing techniques for solar-grade silicon.[10]

He has worked on solar concentrators with BP Solar.[9][4]

Awards

See also

References

  1. ↑ A. Cuevas, A. Luque, J. Eguren and J. del Alamo (1981), High Efficiency Bifacial Back Surface Field Solar Cells, Solar Cells, 3 (1981) 337-340 (pdf)
  2. ↑ Antonio Martí and Antonio Luque (2009), Intermediate Band Solar Cells, OECC2009 conference paper 602 (pdf)
  3. ↑ A. Luque, Skew rays in one stage tracking concentrators, Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1988, Conference Record of the Twentieth IEEE
  4. 1 2 Spain's solar surge, Chemistry World (April 2008), Royal Society of Chemistry
  5. ↑ European "Fullspectrum" project
  6. ↑ Distinguished people of UPM
  7. ↑ Antonio Luque, Steven Hegedus (2011), Handbook of Photovoltaic Science and Engineering (2nd edition), John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0470976128, 9780470976128
  8. ↑ A. Luque, A. Martí (1997), Increasing the efficiency of ideal solar cells by photon induced transitions at intermediate levels, Physical Review Letters 78 (26): 5014-5017
  9. 1 2 Oral-History:Antonio Luque Lopez, IEEE Global History Network, 2002
  10. ↑ CENTESIL: An independent Research Centre on Polysilicon, Universia Holding, 2011
  11. ↑ 2006 Cherry Award Recipient, IEEE
  12. ↑ Award recipient 2008, SolarWorld Einstein Award
  13. ↑ Karl Böer Award

Further reading

External links

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