Marvin S. Abrahams received the BS degree from Columbia University in 1954, as a Henry Krumb Scholar, and the MS degree in Metallurgical Engineering from Columbia in 1955, as a Campbell Fellow. He was awarded the Doctor of Engineering Science degree in Physical Metallurgy from Columbia in 1958, while holding a General Electric Fellowship. His graduate research was concerned with dislocation dynamics during the high-temperature deformation of metals. Since 1957, he has been with RCA Laboratories, Princeton, NJ.

Dr. Abrahams has pioneered in the metallurgy of electronic materials especially in regard to the effects of crystalline imperfections on the electrical and mechanical properties of semiconductors. He has studied dislocation behavior and brittle fracture in both elemental and compound semiconductors and has investigated the effect of growth parameters on crystal defects in CaF2 lasers, as well as dislocation formation in CdS crystals. He has also synthesized and characterized III-V compounds for thermoelectric power generation devices, correlated the formation of dislocations and precipitates with the performance of GaAs injection lasers, and worked extensively on IC, LSI, and VLSI characterization. He has done research on the origin, effect, and elimination of crystalline imperfections in epitaxially grown III-V compounds, utilizing mainly electron microscopy to relate microstructure to properties in the silicon-on-sapphire system. He has also studied heteroepitaxial interfaces with the ultrahighresolution electron microscope at the University of Oxford, England, as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow in 1980. He then did research on the VideoDisc matrixing operation as well as the VideoDisc stylus, including direct imaging (atomic resolution) of the Ti-diamond interface by use of the Atom Probe (at Oxford), and plating and matrixing steps associated with manufacturing. These studies have led to the publication of more than 60 scientific papers.

His development and use of cross-sectional samples in the transmission electron microscope have been adopted worldwide by such institutions as Bell Laboratories, Hewlett-Packard, and the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (England). He pioneered the design and use of ion bombardment for thinning samples for transmission electron microscopy as well as generalized electrical measurements.

In 1965 and 1971, he received an RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Award and in 1967, he shared in a David Sarnoff Outstanding Team Award. Dr. Abrahams is a member of the American Physical Society, American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, Electrochemical Society, Electron Microscope Society of America, American Vaccum Society, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi.
- RCA 1986 Company Biography

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