Samuel Pellicori, Coating Material News

Introducing long-term associate Samuel Pellicori – the man behind the newsletter. Sam has been the key contributor to Coating Materials News since its inception. As an optical coating specialist with his own consulting business, Sam is an expert in coating materials and their applications for use in UV through IR regions.

Sam’s relationship with Materion began in 1984, when the company was still known as CERAC.  He published a paper in the journal Thin Solid Films that inspired CERAC founder Dr. Erv Colton with the creation of IRX.  Together they investigated a variety of fluoride compounds as possible replacements for thorium fluoride (ThF4). Two professional peer-reviewed papers were published as a result of this work, and a patent awarded to Materion for IRX, a thorium fluoride replacement. Sam also assisted with evaluating many optical coating materials, resulting in the writing of Materion technical data sheets.

Prior to forming his own company in 1986, Sam worked for the Santa Barbara Research Center (which eventually became Raytheon). He has been an independent consultant to the international community for the past 28 years and has subcontracted services in optical coating design, deposition process development, materials, problem-diagnosis and instrument applications.  He has assisted over one hundred organizations running the gamut from Fortune 500 to major aerospace companies to start-up businesses to universities and government agencies like NASA and NOAA. He has worked in such disciplines as bio-tech, industrial, military, commercial, entertainment, space, solar power, earth resources, climate monitoring and planetary exploration.

Sam holds a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Optical Sciences from the Univ. of Arizona, Tucson. He has taught courses in optics of photography and optics in fine art at the graduate level. While originally from Wisconsin, he has lived in Santa Barbara for more than forty years and has three grown children.  He has a broad range of interests and hobbies including optical art photography, foreign travel to explore/ photograph architecture & antiquities, learning German, listening to classical music, technical writing, collecting art glass, and gardening.

Sam’s in-depth articles continue to enlighten our readers on the technologies behind Materion’s products and services.