Raimond Castaing

Brief biography

After studies with Monaco, Condom and Toulouse, it enters to the National university in 1940 and follows the courses of Joliot-Curie to the Collège de France. Refractory with STO in 1943 and 1944, it resumes its studies with the Libération and passes its aggregation in 1946.

It enters in 1947 to the National office of studies and aerospace research (ONERA) and prepares under the direction of the professor Guinier a thesis which it will present in 1951. (See below) For the first time in the world, its work will make it possible to analyze the matter to know the composition on a scale of it Micromètre. The guiding idea is to bombard a sample with an electron beam and to analyze the Wavelength X-rays resulting from the interaction electron S-matter. The technique became universally known under the name of “Microsonde of Castaing” or “microanalysis X”, or, in English, “ EPMA ” ( honest electron microphone-analysis ).

At the end of the Years 1950 and in the beginning of the Years 1960, Castaing also takes part in the development of another technique known under the name of Spectrometry mass to secondary ionization whose English acronym is SIMS.

Professor in Toulouse then professor of general physics to the Faculty of Science of Paris, Raimond Castaing takes part in the creation of the Université of Paris-South - Orsay. Member of the Academy of Science since 1977, he is president of the work group on the management of fuels irradiated then work group on the research and development on management of the radioactive waste (1984).

One also entrusted responsibilities to him to ONERA, of 1968 with 1973: scientific director, then managing director. In 1975, it receives the Gold medal of CNRS. Elected with the Academy of Science (France) in 1977, then with the the Council of the nuclear security in 1982, he is also member of the Comité for atomic energy in 1987. Civil administrator of CNRS of 1983 with 1989. Member of the 1984, board of directors of the iron and steel company Usinor with 1987.

In 1996, it is charged by the government with chairing the scientific commission independent experts charged to evaluate the capacities of the nuclear reactor Super-Phenix.

Raimond Castaing dies the April 10th 1998, after a long illness.

The adventure of the Microsounder of Castaing

When Raimond Castaing between with ONERA in January 1947, as engineer of research, it has like objective to prepare a thesis under the direction of the professor André Guinier. ONERA is a French research institute public for the Aéronautique. With ONERA, Castaing with the chance to be able to use two microcopes electronic, which was a luxury for the time, a RCA and a CSF.

Guinier asks Castaing if it would not be possible to analyze a Alliage by bombarding it with a focused probe ic electron and by detecting the X-rays characteristic according to the Loi of Moseley. Castaing is initially skeptic, because he thinks that if the idea is realizable, others had to do it before him, but he launches out finally to body lost in the project. It cannibalize microscope CSF with electrostatic lenses to produce an electronic probe of some nano amps in a diameter of a Micromètre, which was not commonplace at that time. The presentation of this electronic probe took place in 1949 with Stockholm.

Guinier then gets for Castaing one his invaluable crystals, especially cut and formatted, of type “Johansson” to constitute small a Spectromètre which adapts to the electronic column. As of 1949, it obtains its first measurements of Photon S X which it can present to Delft, in 1949, during the first European Conference of electronic microscopy.

In 1951, Castaing presents its thesis Application of the electronic probes to a specific, chemical and crystallographic method of analysis . This thesis as well recovers instrumental aspects like the aberration S of lens, the optimization of the electronic probe, that more fundamental aspects, like the modeling of the x-emission, the calculation of the corrections, some applications to the Métallurgie and even of the Cristallographie (the diagrams of Kossel).

What gave force with its method is the demonstration made in the thesis that one can measure the concentration of a chemical element by simply calibrating the apparatus with a massive sample of the same element, contrary with the other methods which required curves of calibration. Still one needed a comprehension of the physical phenomena concerned by the diffusion of the electrons in the sample, the emission and the absorption of X in this same sample.

The following years, ONERA develops an scientific instrument starting from the breadboard construction which had been used for the thesis. Two identical prototypes, the first for the needs for ONERA and the second for IRSID, a French institute of research for the metallurgy that Gunier convinces to finance the project. At the same time, company CAMECA builds a third counterpart, available in 1958.

The microsounder of Castaing then was produced to hundreds of specimens and is a tool of first importance in all the analysis laboratories in the fields of the metallurgy and sciences of the ground.

Publications

Raimond Castaing is the author of more than one hundred of publications among which:

Castaing R (1951), Application of the electronic probes to a chemical and crystallographic specific method of analysis. Thesis of doctorate of state , University of Paris, 1952, Publication ONERA NR. 55
Castaing R, The early vicissitudes off honest electron x-ray microanalysis . IOP Bull (London), p 93-96 (1966)
Castaing R, Descamps J On the basis of physical specific analysis by spectrography X. J Phys (Paris) 16:304 - 310 (1955)
Castaing R, Philibert J, Crussard C Electron honest microanalysis and its applications to ferrous metallurgy . J Metals 9:389 - 394 (1957)
Castaing R, Deschamps P, Philibert J (eds) (1966) Optical of the rays-X and microanalysis. In: 4th International Conference one X-Ray Optics and Microanalysis. Paris: Hermann Publ.

Sources of the article

Klaus Keil, Presentation off the Roebling Medal off the Mineralogical Society off America for 1977 to Raimond Castaing
Jean Philibert, The time off pioneers, Microscopy and Microanalysis newspaper, 7,94-99, 2001

See too

Microsounder of Castaing

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