C. S. Barrett
University of Denver
September 28, 1902 - June 14, 1994
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Scientific Discipline: Applied Physical Sciences Membership Type:
Emeritus
(elected 1967)
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C.S. Barrett was a leading scientist in the field of metallurgical physics. His research laid the foundation for metallurgical studies in the 20th Century. While pursuing his doctorate, Barrett was the first scientist to show the diffraction pattern from individual atoms by measuring the scattering patterns of gases. He joined the Naval Research Laboratory in 1928 as a researcher for R. F. Mehl. His first postdoctoral work was on gamma ray radiography and the Widmanstäteen structure. This established gamma ray radiography as an efficient and non-destructive testing method, and it altered the entire approach to the study of metallic transformations. In 1932, he left the Naval Research Laboratory to teach metallurgy at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. While there, Barrett was one of the first metallurgists to apply an electron microscope to metal structures. He also published (along with M. Gensamer) one of the earliest papers describing methods of measuring stress with x-rays. His most important publication emerged in 1943 when he wrote The Structure of Metals. This book (which has been reprinted three times) remains one of the most widely used resources in metal sciences.
In 1944, he gave the Annual Lecture of the Institute of Metals Division of AIME (American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers) in which he presented a new method of microscopy that permitted useful magnifications up to about 100 diameters (later called the Berg-Barrett method). Barrett left Carnegie to become a professor of metallurgy for the Institute for the Study of Metals at the University of Chicago in 1946 (where he remained until 1971). Barrett published several important findings while at the college. These papers included studies on the structures of alkali metals at low temperatures and the crystal structures and phase diagrams of frozen gases. Barrett was able to determine the structure of oxygen at low temperatures, an unsolvable problem in the scientific community for 40 years. This discovery helped other researchers to determine the behavior of other gas molecules during structural transformations caused by temperature changes. His last major contribution to metallurgy was the development of x-ray diffraction techniques, which helped scientists to more accurately determine the compositions and phases of certain metals in specific conditions.
Barrett went to the University of South Dakota and earned his B.Sc. degree in engineering in 1925. He then received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago in 1928. Along with his extensive teaching career, he was also the editor of Metals and Alloys, a section of “Structure Reports,” a magazine for the International Union of Crystallography, from 1948 to 1951. Barrett was awarded the Mathewson Medal from AIME three separate times (1934, 1944, and 1950). He also received the Howe Medal from the American Society for Metals in 1939 and the Clamer Medal from the Franklin Institute in 1950.
