1993 Seaborg Award: Richard M. Diamond

Award Statement C&EN (Page 5)

Diamond received his B.S. from UCLA in 1947 and his Ph.D. degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1951.

Diamond’s early career focused on the development of cation exchange methods for separation of transplutonium elements. From 1950 until 1965, his research involved experiments and theory explaining ion-exchange resin and solvent extraction behavior.

After joining the staff of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in 1958, he began research in high-spin nuclear physics, in collaboration with Frank S. Stephens. This work included the first experiments demonstrating multistep Coulomb excitation with heavy ions and early in-beam studies to produce the highest spin states observed at the time, demonstration of centrifugal stretching of nuclei under rotation, discovery of decoupled bands, observation of a second band-crossing in a nucleus, observation of a rotational band termination in a rare-earth nucleus at high spin, and superdeformed bands in nuclei. He also helped design and build the first large germanium-detector array.