Alvin Van Valkenburg

Alvin Van Valkenburg, Jr. (12 August 1913, Schenectady, New York – 5 December 1991, Tucson, Arizona) was an experimental physicist, geologist, geochemist, and inventor, known as one of the four co-inventors of the diamond anvil cell (DAC).

Alvin Van Valkenburg, Jr. graduated in 1936 from Schenectady's Union College with a B.S. in geology and in 1938 from the University of Colorado Boulder with an M.S. in mineralogy and petrology. After returning to Schenectady to teach at Union College, he moved to the Boston area, where he worked from 1941 to 1945 at the Charleston Navy Yard as a physicist in charge of degaussing ships. During WWII he enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard University, where he studied under Percy Bridgman and the mineralogist Esper S. Larsen, Jr. (1879–1961). In 1945 Van Valkenburg became employed at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Washington, DC. From 1945 to 1946 he pursued graduate studies at Johns Hopkins University. The gasket (made of a metal such as rhenium or tungsten) flows under ultra-high pressure and fills the central hole with fluid to achieve hydrostatic conditions. The tiny sample to be analyzed is compressed between the two opposing culets (tips) of diamond. The gasket is used to maintain the sample's contact with the culets, where the pressure is at a maximum.

In 1964 he left the NBS and became employed at the National Science Foundation (NSF). There he was director of the geochemistry program from 1964 to 1970 and retired in 1974. From 1974 to 1980 he was a guest investigator at the Geophysical Laboratory. In 1980 he moved to Tucson, Arizona and transferred his small business of manufacturing and selling DACs from Washington, DC to Tucson, where he was a business partner with his son, Eric.

Upon his death in 1991 Alvin Van Valkenburg was survived by his widow, his son, two daughters, and two grandchildren.

Selected publications