Leon O. Morgan

Leon Owen "Tommy" Morgan Jr. (October 25, 1919 – July 29, 2002) was an American academic and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. He co-discovered the chemical element americium along with Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg and Ralph A. James.

During World War II, he worked under Seaborg on plutonium chemistry in the Manhattan Project in Chicago and in 1944 on the discovery of transuranic elements by irradiating plutonium at the cyclotron in Berkeley.

Early life and education Morgan was born in Oklahoma City in 1919. He then entered the University of Texas at Austin, earning his master's degree in chemistry in 1942. The school would eventually name the Leon O. Morgan Graduate Fellowship in his honour.

Early career During World War II, Morgan worked on the Manhattan Project, aiming to develop the atomic bomb. He was assigned to the University of Chicago, where he joined the Nuclear Chemistry Metallurgy Research Group under Nobel Laureate Glenn T. Seaborg. There, he worked on the chemistry of plutonium processing, which led to his involvement in the isolation of curium and the discovery of americium in 1944-45. After the war, Morgan completed his PhD under Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1947. directed by Glenn T. Seaborg. With sufficient plutonium available, Seaborg instructed chemists Ralph A. James and Leon O. Morgan to irradiate plutonium in the Berkeley cyclotron, sending samples to Chicago for analysis by Albert Ghiorso. They confirmed the presence of americium by identifying characteristic alpha particles emitted by the activated samples.

Discovery of americium Americium was discovered in 1944 by Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James, Morgan, and Albert Ghiorso by bombarding plutonium-239, an isotope of plutonium, with high energy neutrons. This formed plutonium-240, which was itself bombarded with neutrons, turning into plutonium-241, which then decayed into americium-241 through beta decay. This was done at the University of Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory, now known as Argonne National Laboratory. a critical diagnostic tool in medicine.

He was chairman of the University’s Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Men, 1979-87, and served as a member of the Council from 1968-72 and again from 1988-89. Following his retirement from teaching, he served as President of the UT Austin Retired Faculty-Staff Association and as Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the UT Austin Faculty Center.

1950: Ghiorso A, James RA, Morgan LO, Seaborg GT. Preparation of transplutonium isotopes by neutron irradiation. Physical Review. 78: 472. DOI: 10.1103/Physrev.78.472 1956: Morgan LO, Nolle AW, Hull RL, Murphy J. Proton relaxation in solutions of chromium (III) complexes. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 25: 206-208. 1956: Morgan LO, Murphy J, Nolle AW. Proton spin relaxation in water-glycerin solutions of chromium (III) ions. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 24: 906-907. 1957: Nolle AW, Morgan LO. Frequency dependence of proton spin relaxation in aqueous solutions of paramagnetic ions. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 26: 642-648. 1959: Morgan LO, Murphy J, Cox PF. Proton spin relaxation in aqueous solutions of paramagnetic ions. III. Copper(II)-diamine complexes. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 81: 5043-5047. 1959: Morgan LO, Nolle AW. Proton spin relaxation in aqueous solutions of paramagnetic ions. II. Cr+++, Mn++, Ni++, Cu++, and Gd+++. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 31: 365-368. 1959: Cox PF, Morgan LO. Proton spin relaxation in aqueous solutions of paramagnetic ions. IV. Temperature dependence in solutions of copper(II)-ethylenediamine complexes. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 81: 6409-6412. 1961: Bloembergen N, Morgan LO. Proton relaxation times in paramagnetic solutions. Effects of electron spin relaxation. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 34: 842-850. 1963: Morgan LO. On hydration of gadolinium (III) ions in aqueous solution. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 38: 2788-2789. 1966: Hinckley CC, Morgan LO. Electron spin resonance linewidths of manganese (II) ions in concentrated aqueous solutions. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 44: 898-905. 1966: Garreti BB, Morgan LO. Electron spin relaxation in solvated manganese (II) ion solutions. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 44: 890-897. 1966: Zeltmann AH, Morgan LO. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance of Oxygen-17 and Chlorine-35 in Aqueous Hydrochloric Acid Solutions of Iron(III). The Journal of Physical Chemistry. 70: 2807-2813. DOI: 10.1021/j100881a016 1967: Alei M, Lewis WB, Denison AB, Morgan LO. Magnetic resonance studies on copper (II) complex ions in solution. III. NMR and EPR in concentrated ethylenediamine solutions. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 47: 1062-1070. 1968: Zeltmann AH, Matwiyoff NA, Morgan LO. Nuclear magnetic resonance of oxygen-17 and chlorine-35 in aqueous hydrochloric acid solutions of cobalt(II). I. Line shifts and relative abundances of solution species. Journal of Physical Chemistry. 72: 121-127. 1969: Zeltmann AH, Matwiyoff NA, Morgan LO. Nuclear magnetic resonance of oxygen-17 and chlorine-35 in aqueous hydrochloric acid solutions of cobalt (II). II. Relaxation and chemical exchange. Journal of Physical Chemistry. 73: 2689-2696. 1969: Garrett BB, Morgan LO. Erratum: Electron Spin Relaxation in Solvated Manganese (II) Ion Solutions. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 50: 3135-3136. DOI: 10.1063/1.1671533 1970: Zeltmann AH, Morgan LO. Ligand substitution processes in aqueous cobalt(II)-thiocyanate solutions. Nuclear magnetic resonances of oxygen-17 and nitrogen-14. Inorganic Chemistry. 9: 2522-2528. 1970: Hempel JC, Morgan LO, Lewis WB. Electron paramagnetic resonance of trans-disubstituted bis(ethylenediamine)chromium(III) complexes in frozen solutions. Inorganic Chemistry. 9: 2064-2072. 1970: Matwiyoff NA, Strouse CE, Morgan LO. Carbon-13 and oxygen-17 nuclear magnetic resonance studies of the structure of the nickel(II)-ethylenediaminetetraacetate complexes in aqueous solution. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 92: 5222-5224. DOI: 10.1021/Ja00720A040 1975: Fuentes R, Morgan LO, Matwiyoff NA. Fourier transform carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance of aqueous nickel(II)-acetic acid solutions. I. Equilibrium quotients from relative abundances of solution species. Inorganic Chemistry. 14: 1837-1840. 1976: Goff H, Morgan LO. Magnetic properties of iron(III) porphyrin dimers in aqueous solution. Inorganic Chemistry. 15: 3180-3181. 1976: Morgan LO, Eakin RT, Vergamimi PJ, Matwiyoff NA. Carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance of heme carbonyls. Cytochrome c and carboxymethyl derivatives of cytochrome c. Biochemistry. 15: 2203-7. PMID 6042 1978: Goff HM, Morgan LO. Carbon-13 and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of water-soluble porphyrins and metalloporphyrins. Bioinorganic Chemistry. 9: 61-79. PMID 687673 DOI: 10.1016/S0006-3061(00)82006-2