Raimond Bernard René Castaing (December 28, 1921 – April 10, 1998), also spelt as Raymond Castaing, was a French solid state physicist and inventor of various materials characterization methods. He was the founder of the French school of microanalysis and is referred to as the father of

microanalysis Microanalysis is the chemical identification and quantitative analysis of very small amounts of chemical substances (generally less than 10 mg or 1 ml) or very small surfaces of material (generally less than 1 cm2). One of the pioneer ...

Education and career

Castaing went to school in

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

Condom A condom is a sheath-shaped Barrier contraception, barrier device used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy or a Sexually transmitted disease, sexually transmitted infection (STI). There are both external condo ...

, and

Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...

. From 1940 he studied physics at the

École Normale Supérieure in Paris École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

(ENS) and at the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

, interrupted by work service in 1943/44. He also attended lectures by

Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...

, who taught at the

Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...

, and courses by

Alfred Kastler Alfred Kastler (; 3 May 1902 – 7 January 1984) was a German-born French physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics. He is known for the development of optical pumping. Biography Kastler was born in Guebwiller (Alsace, at the time part of the Germ ...

and others at the ENS. In 1946 he graduated from the ENS and from 1947 he was an engineer with the national space research organization

ONERA The Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales ( English: National office for aerospace studies and research) or ONERA, dubbed ''The French Aerospace Lab'' in English, is the French national aerospace research center. Originally f ...

. In 1951 he received his doctorate under the supervision of

André Guinier André Guinier (1 August, 1911 – 3 July, 2000) was a French physicist and crystallographer who did pioneering work in the field of X-ray diffraction and solid-state physics. He was credited for the discovery and developments of small-angle X- ...

, with the thesis titled ''Application des sondes électroniques à une méthode d'analyse ponctuelle chimique et cristallographique'' (Application of electron probes to local chemical and crystallographic analysis). He developed the microprobe named after him, which enabled material investigations in the micrometer range from the analysis of the X-ray spectra after electron bombardment (electron beam microanalysis, EPMA, Electron Probe Micro Analysis). In the late 1950s he was also involved in the development of

secondary ion mass spectrometry Secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a technique used to analyze the composition of solid surfaces and thin films by sputtering the surface of the specimen with a focused primary ion beam and collecting and analyzing ejected secondary ions ...

(SIMS) (with his student Georges Slodzian). The first demonstration took place in 1960 and further development took place at the Cameca company and there was competition with the SIMS developed in the US by Richard Herzog and

Helmut Liebl Helmut is a German name. Variants include Hellmut, Helmuth, and Hellmuth. From old German, the first element deriving from either ''heil'' ("healthy") or ''hiltja'' ("battle"), and the second from ''muot'' ("spirit, mind, mood"). Helmut may refer ...

. In 1952, he became a lecturer (''

maître de conferences The following summarizes basic academic ranks in the France, French higher education system. Most academic institutions are state-run and most academics with permanent positions are French Civil Service, civil servants, and thus are Academic tenur ...

'') at the

University of Toulouse The University of Toulouse (, ) is a community of universities and establishments ( ComUE) based in Toulouse, France. Originally it was established in 1229, making it one of the earliest universities to emerge in Europe. Suppressed during the ...

and from 1956 at the

. From 1959 he was a professor at the

University of Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (), also known as the University of Paris — XI (or as the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, ...

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

, where he founded the Laboratory for Solid State Physics with

Jacques Friedel Jacques Friedel ForMemRS (; 11 February 1921 – 27 August 2014) was a French physicist and material scientist. Education Friedel attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school. He studied at the École Polytechnique from 1944 to 1946, and the É ...

and others. From 1968 to 1973 he was scientific director and later general director of ONERA. From 1982 he was on the French National Council for Reactor Safety Issues and from 1987 on the French National Committee for Nuclear Energy. In this capacity, he headed a state commission in 1996 that was to assess the

Superphénix Superphénix (; , SPX) was a nuclear power station prototype on the Rhône river at Creys-Mépieu, Creys-Malville in France, close to the border with Switzerland. Superphénix was a 1,242 MWe fast breeder reactor with the twin goals of reprocessi ...

reactor. From 1984 to 1987 he was on the supervisory board of the French steel group

Usinor Usinor was a French steel making group formed in 1948. The group was merged with Sacilor in 1986, becoming Usinor-Sacilor and was privatised in 1995, and renamed Usinor in 1997. In 2001 it merged with Arbed (Luxembourg) and Aceralia (Spain) to ...

Honors and awards

In 1966 he received the Holweck Prize, in 1975 the CNRS Gold Medal and in 1977 the

Roebling Medal The Roebling Medal is the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America for scientific eminence as represented primarily by scientific publication of outstanding original research in mineralogy. The award is named for Colonel Washington A. ...

of the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

. In 1968 he became a member of the

German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (), in short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on 1 January 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academi ...

. In 1977 he also became a member of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

Raimond Castaing's research achievements

Raimond Castaing Microanalysis Centre, Toulouse, France

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castaing, Raimond 1998 deaths 1921 births Members of the French Academy of Sciences Academic staff of the University of Toulouse Mass spectrometrists 20th-century French physicists École Normale Supérieure alumni University of Paris alumni French materials scientists French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists French National Centre for Scientific Research awards French experimental physicists Academic staff of Paris-Saclay University Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina