Dr. Samuel A. Alterovitz is a senior research engineer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Alterovitz has played an important role in starting work in new materials (e.g., indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs), silicon germanium (SiGe)) for high-speed, low-noise, high-efficiency electronic devices. He has developed two techniques for electronic materials characterization: variable-angle spectroscopic ellipsometry and new magnetoresistance methods for multilayer structures. He developed the epitaxial liftoff technique to achieve complete microwave circuits on nonsemiconducting substrates, and developed materials and microwave devices for extended temperature applications. He is working now on further developing SiGe and gallium nitride (GaN) technologies and improving the ellipsometry technique and its applications.

Dr. Alterovitz earned his doctoral degree in solid-state physics in 1971. He has authored over 175 papers in refereed journals and160 meeting presentations, and edited 5 books. He has written 9 invited chapters in books and given over 50 invited talks at conferences, workshops, university colloquia, and research institutes. Dr. Alterovitz is a member of the Materials Research Society (MRS) and the American Vacuum Society (AVS). He joined NASA in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1983.