Education:
MS Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State Univ. at Raleigh, 1965
B. S. Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State Univ. at Raleigh, 1964
Experience:
Mr. Ed Horne founded EDTEK, Inc. in 1991 with the mission to develop and commercialize solar photovoltaic (PV) and thermophotovoltaic (TPV) technology. He has been responsible for all aspects of management at the company. In addition to the business management aspects, he has been project manager for fourteen research and development contracts. These contracts have centered on the development of TPV systems. He has continued commercializing a hybrid solar concentrator/natural gas driven TPV system that was developed on a grant from the California Energy Commission. He has managed an on-going program for the U. S. Department of Defense to develop a portable, 500-watt diesel fueled TPV generator. He has also been the program manager for the development of a 1000 watt diesel fueled TPV system and a 5 watt propane TPV system. Between 1994 he managed programs to develop TPV components for a radioisotope powered TPV (RTPV) system. In the course of this work masked ion beam lithography technology was transferred from the University of Houston to EDTEK for the production of resonant micromesh IR bandpass filters for TPV use and GaSb TPV cell technology was licensed and transferred from The Boeing Company. Between 1986 and 1994 Mr. Horne was the project manager for photovoltaics at the Boeing High Technology Center where he initiated the effort that led to the development of the low-bandgap GaSb TPV cell at Boeing and incorporated the cells into a radioisotope power system for deep space missions. Mr. Horne was also responsible for the first efforts to develop the resonant micromesh IR bandpass filter for TPV applications. From 1965 to 1984 he was a lead engineer in the Physics Technology Group at the Boeing Aerospace Company. He led programs to research both space and weapons radiation effects in electronic devices and components. He led several investigations of space and weapons radiation effects in solar cells and power systems. These studies included the effects of neutron radiation in silicon and GaAs PV cells.
Patents: Mr. Horne is author or co-author of eight patents in the field of solar and TPV power generation. Two of the most relevant of these follow:
Filter Array For Modifying Radiant Thermal Energy Mark Morgan and W. E. Horne, Patent No. 5,611,870, March 18, 1997.
Method for Fabricating Resonant Micromesh IR Filters Mark Morgan and W. E. Horne, Patent No. 5,861,226, Jan. 19, 1999.
Publications: Mr. Horne has authored or co-authored over 50 publications in his field.
"A 500 Watt Diesel Fueled TPV Portable Power Supply", William E. Horne, Mark D. Morgan, and Vasan S. Sundaram, J. Am Vac Soc, Conference on TPV Conversion, Rome, Italy, Sept 2002.
"Integrated Bandpass Filter Contacts for Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic Cells", William E. Horne, Mark D. Morgan, and Vasan S. Sundaram, Proceedings IECEC, 1998.
"IR Filters for TPV Converter Modules", W. E. Horne, Mark D. Morgan, and Vasan Sundaram, Space Nuclear Power symposium, Albuquerque, NM 1996.