Fraunhofer ISE founder Adolf Goetzberger deceased

Prof. Dr. Adolf Goetzberger, a pioneer of global solar energy research and founder of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany, passed away on February 24 at the age of 94. This was announced by the institute on Wednesday (March 1).
Goetzberger was director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF in 1981. In this position he pushed through the establishment of an independent institute for solar energy research, which he directed until 1993. Today, Fraunhofer ISE is the largest of its kind in Europe and one of the most renowned worldwide.
Among the many awards Adolf Goetzberger received during his long career, which began in 1955 with a doctorate on the crystallization of vapor-deposited antimony layers after studying experimental physics, were the Becquerel Prize, the William R. Cherry Award, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Inventor Award, and also the J. J. Ebers Award from the American IEEE Electron Devices Society for the development of the silicon field-effect transistor: After earning his doctorate, Goetzberger worked in the U.S. until 1968 with Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the transistor William Shockley in Palo Alto (California) and at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill (New Jersey). The holder of more than 30 patents is also considered the originator of »agri-photovoltaics«, for which he presented a concept with his colleague Armin Zastrow in 1981.
At the German PV Symposium 2023 in Bad Staffelstein, which ends today, an »Adolf Goetzberger Award« was announced for the coming year. It is to be financed by a foundation and awarded to persons »who have rendered outstanding services to technical progress in photovoltaics.«
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