Manuel Cardona Castro

Manuel Cardona Castro (7 September 1934 – 2 July 2014) was a Spanish condensed matter physicist. According to the ISI Citations web database, Cardona was one of the eight most cited physicists since 1970. Cardona's main interests were in the fields of: Raman scattering (and other optical spectroscopies) as applied to semiconductor microstructures, materials with tailor-made isotopic compositions, and high Tc superconductors, particularly investigations of electronic and vibronic excitations in the normal and superconducting state. 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. Concomitantly he became scientific Member of the Max Planck Society, where he became emeritus in 2000.

Distinctions and honors Besides receiving over at least 61 awards during his career, 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 Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, 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, Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences 1997 John Wheatley Award, American Physical Society 1999 Ernst Mach Medal, Prague 2001 Nevill Mott Medal and Prize 2003 Matteucci Medal by the Accademia nazionale delle scienze, Italy 2009 Fellow, Royal Society of Canada 2011 Vernadsky Gold Medal of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine 2012 Paul Klemens Award, Phonons Conference, Ann Arbor, MI. 2012 Luis Federico Leloir Prize, Argentina

Publications

Cardona has authored over 1,300 scientific publications in international journals, ten monographs on solid state physics and co-authored a textbook on semiconductors. where he lived since 1971 with his wife Inge Cardona (née Hecht). He held American, German and Spanish citizenship and had 3 children and 7 grandchildren.