Ivan Georgiev Petrov (Bulgarian: Иван Георгиев Петров; born 6 September 1949) is a Bulgarian-American physicist specializing in thin films, surface science, and methods of characterization of materials.

[2] Since 2010 he is an adjunct professor in the department of physics, chemistry and biology (IFM) at Linköping University[3] in Sweden, where he was awarded an honoris causa degree in 2009.

He was elected chair of the surface engineering division of the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications, serving terms from 2007 to 2022.

[4] Petrov's research elucidated the ways to obtain high-quality thin films, at low substrate temperatures, from refractory materials, such as transition metal nitrides, through the use of high-fluxes of low-energy ions.

[5] He co-authored the seminal papers on High-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) which demonstrated that this technique produces highly ionized metal fluxes and opened additional ways to manipulate films properties.