Alvin M. Marks
Alvin M. Marks | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Polarizing materials; Lumeloid and Lepcon solar converters; electric power converters |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, Applied optics, Electrical engineering |
Alvin M. Marks (Alvin Melville Marks, 1910–2008) was an American inventor, physicist and prolific patent holder known for his work on polarizing materials and unconventional electric-power and solar-energy conversion devices. He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists under the "New Energy" category.
Work
Over his career Marks was granted more than one hundred United States patents, many of them concerned with polarizing films and optical materials. His inventions in that field included polarizing film used in sunglasses and processes related to three-dimensional imaging.
Marks is best known among alternative-energy circles for a series of proposed high-efficiency and novel power-conversion devices. These included:
- Lumeloid and Lepcon, thin-film submicron-antenna solar converters that Marks claimed could convert a large fraction of incident sunlight into electricity, well above the efficiencies of conventional photovoltaic cells.
- An electric power converter / aerosol electrothermodynamic generator intended to generate electricity from charged particles without conventional moving parts.
His high-efficiency conversion claims were promoted heavily but were never independently demonstrated at the performance levels he asserted, and his "new energy" devices remained outside mainstream commercial and scientific acceptance. On this basis de Climont included him in the dissident list.