Maria C. Tamargo
Acting Dean of Science

Professor Tamargo is a newly elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

After obtaining her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1978, she did research at AT&T Bell Labs on the development of semiconductor materials, such as gallium arsenide, that are used in light wave communications.

Prior to joining City College in 1993, she served as a research scientist for Bellcore, where she established a research program using the technique of Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) to fabricate a class of semiconductor materials known as II-VI compounds. Professor Tamargo perfomed both fundamental studies on the materials’ growth and properties, and their potential development for novel device applications, such as blue-green laser diodes.

At City College she has continued her research in MBE growth with the emphasis on a family of zinc-selenide-based II-VI semiconductors that have the unique property that they emit light of any color within the visible spectrum range. Such materials may be used, for example, to fabricate compact and ultra-bright display screens for specialized instrumentation.

She has published more than 150 scientific papers and chapter contributions to books, chaired national and international conferences in the field of semiconductor materials, and has given numerous invited presentations. She was an invited speaker at the American Physical Society’s March 2000 Meeting in Minneapolis, and at the International Conference on Molecular Beam Epitaxy held in Beijing the same year.

She has been elected to chair the Eleventh International Conference on II-VI Compounds that will be held in 2003. Recently she completed editing a text entitled II-VI Compounds and Their Applications that will be published this year.

Professor Tamargo received her B.S. in chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedrias in 1972, and her M.S. from Johns Hopkins in 1975.

She is a member of the CUNY Center for Advanced Technology on Ultrafast Photonics, and of CCNY’s Center for Analysis of Structures and Interfaces. She is also a member of both the CUNY Chemistry and Physics doctoral faculties.