Alfred Margaryan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist
Founder

Dr. Margaryan is our Founder and leads the development of AFO’s cutting-edge technology.  He brings more than 40 years of experience to our team having previously served as a highly respected chemical physicist, solid-state chemist, material scientist, spectroscopist, optical engineer, program director, and principal investigator. Dr. Margaryan holds 9 patents, authored 6 books, and published over 130 articles. Prior projects he has worked on include synthesis and production of optical crystals, new-generation of vitreous materials, radiometry, chemistry, and optical matrices. Dr. Margaryan’s innovative optical systems design has broken new ground in physical and chemical properties of optical materials.  Through the years, his extensive research unveiled the scientific explanation for chemical bonds and their behavior between network former, ligands, modifiers and dopants in vitreous materials. The study of the effect of ligands and modifier ions on the spectroscopic properties of dn or fn elements in vitreous materials is important for the further development of more controllable lasers, amplifiers and other optical devices.  Dr. Margaryan has shown that ligand-dopant bonds are similar for different glasses, which leads in turn to similarities in the spectrochemical and spectroscopic parameters.  Based on spectroscopic data, Dr. Margaryan demonstrated that polarizability, rather than the field strength of a ligand, has a more significant influence on the spectroscopic properties of dopants. The detailed data is presented in his book “Ligands & Modifiers in Vitreous Materials: The Spectroscopy of Condensed Systems”.

Dr. Margaryan has over 30 years of teaching experience in Optical Materials, Laser Science, Fiber Optics, Radiometry, Optical Engineering Mathematics and Physical Chemistry in the former USSR and in the United States of America .  He served as Professor of Optical Engineering at the University of La Verne in California and is a visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Margaryan received his Ph.D. in Optical Physics from Chemico-Technological Institute in Leningrad, Russia.

HONORS: Member SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering); Member OSA (Optical Society of America ); Listed in Marquis Who's Who in Science and Engineering (1998); Marquis Who's Who in the World (1999) and Marquis Who's Who in America 1999. Associate Editor at International Journal "Advances in OptoElectronics" (2006).

A sample of his published books include:

 • Ligands & Modifiers in Vitreous Materials: The Spectroscopy of Condensed Systems. Westfield State College, Institute for Massachusetts , June 1999.

 • Germanate Glasses: Structure, Spectroscopy & Properties, Artech House Optoelectronics Library. Artech House, Inc. July 1993.

 • Photodetectors and Fiber Optics (Ed. H.S. Nalwa), chapter: Germanium Dioxide Based Glasses as Advanced Optical Sensors Materials. Academic Press, San Diego-Boston, March 2001.