Manuel Cardona

Manuel Cardona Castro (b. 7 September, 1936, [or 1934] Barcelona, Spain) is a physicist. According to the ISI Citations web database, Cardona is one of the eighth most cited physicist since 1970. He specializes in solid state physics.

Academic career

After obtaining a Masters in physics in 1955 from University of Barcelona Cardona was awarded a fellowship to work as a graduate student at Harvard University starting in 1956. At Harvard he began investigations of the dielectric properties of semiconductors, in particular germanium and silicon. With this work as a thesis he received a PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard. From 1959 till 1961 he continued similar work on III-V semiconductors at the RCA Laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland. In 1961 he moved to the RCA Labs in Princeton, NJ, where he continued work on the optical properties of semiconductors and started investigations of the microwave properties of superconductors. In 1964 he became member of the Physics Faculty of Brown University (Providence, RI). In 1971 he moved to Stuttgart, Germany as a founding director of the then-recently created Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. Concomitantly he became scientific Member of the Max Planck Society, where he became emeritus 1n 2000.

Interests

Cardona's main interests have been in the fields Raman Scattering (and other optical spectroscopies) as applied to semiconductor microstructures, materials with tailor-made isotopic compositions, and high T-c superconductors, particularly investigations of electronic and vibronic excitations in the normal and superconducting state.

Distinctions and Honors

Besides receiving over at least 61 awards Dr Cardona has eleven hononary doctorates to date. Some notable honors include:

• 1964 American Physical Society, Fellow
• 1982 Narcís Monturiol Medal, Government of Catalonia
• 1984 Frank Isakson Prize, American Physical Society
• 1984 Fellow, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science
• 1984 Corresponding Member, Royal Academy of Sciences of Barcelona
• 1987 Member, National Academy of Sciences of the USA
• 1987 Grand Cross of Alfonso X el Sabio, Spain
• 1988 "Principe de Asturias" Prize, named after the Crown Prince of Spain
• 1991 Member, Academia Europaea
• 1994 Max Planck Research Prize, shared with E.E.Haller, Berkeley
• 1995 Corresponding Member, Royal Academy of Sciences, Spain
• 1997 John Wheatley Prize, American Physical Society
• 2009 Fellow, Royal Society of Canada
• 2011 Bernadsky Gold Medal, Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine

Publications

Cardona has authored over 1,270 scientific publications in international journals, ten monographs on solid state physics and co-authored a textbook on semiconductors. Since 1972, Cardona has served on the Board of Editors of at least seven journals, including being the Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Communications from 2002 to 2005.

Some of his works include:

• Manuel Cardona: Modulation Spectroscopy, Academic Press 1969. Lib of Congress 55-12299
• Manuel Cardona, Gernot Günterodt and Roberto Merlin: Light Scattering in Solids I-IX (nine volumes) Springer Verlag; ISBN 3-540-11513-7
• Pere Bonnin: Manuel Cardona i Castro, Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca, Barcelona 1998 ISBN:84-89570-19-3
• Peter Y. Yu and Manuel Cardona, Fundamentals of semiconductors, 4 editions 1996-2000,ISBN 978-3-642-00709-5

Personal life

At present he lives in Stuttgart with his wife Inge Cardona (née Hecht). They both hold American, German and Spanish citizenship. They have 3 children and 7 grandchildren.