Lawrence Stamper Darken

Lawrence Stamper Darken (18 Sept. 1909, Brooklyn NY – 7 June 1978, State College PA) was an American physical chemist and metallurgist, known for his two equations describing solid-state diffusion in binary solutions.

He earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics and chemistry from Hamilton College and attained his doctoral degree in physical chemistry at Yale in 1933, followed by two postdoctoral years. From 1935 to 1971 Darken was employed at U.S. Steel Corporation Research Laboratory where he was director of the Edgar C. Bain Laboratory for Fundamental Research. He also wrote the textbook Physical chemistry of metals with R. W. Gurry.

In 1968 he received the R. W. Hunt Outstanding Paper Award from the Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) for his papers Thermodynamics of Binary Metallic Solutions and Thermodynamics of Ternary Metallic Solutions. He was also awarded a Gold Medal from the American Society for Metals.