H.
Tracy Hall, 1955- 1919 Born in Ogden, UT
- 1939 Earned A.S. Weber College, Ogden, UT
- 1941 Married Ida-Rose Langford, Salt Lake City, Utah
- 1942 Earned B.S. degree, University of Utah
- 1943 Earned M.S. degree, University of Utah
- 1944 - 1946 Served as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy
- 1948 Earned Ph.D., University of Utah
- 1948 Went to work for GE Research Labs
- 1954 Successfully synthesized diamond
- 1955 Became Chemistry professor and Director of Research, Brigham Young University
- 1957 Invented the tetrahedral press
- 1966 Founded MegaDiamond
- 1970 Received AIC Chemical Pioneer Award
- 1971 Awarded honorary doctorate by BYU
- 1987 Received honorary doctorate from Weber State
- 1994 Awarded Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology.
- 2004 Awarded honorary doctorate by the University of Utah
Articles
by H. Tracy Hall
Awards presented to Dr. Hall
Patents held by Dr. Hall
Tracy Hall was born in Ogden, Utah in 1919 and raised on a farm in Marriott, Utah, a rural town in northern Utah just up the road from the Willard Marriott property.
Tracy’s interest in science began early as a result of the family’s periodic trips into town for supplies. While his parents took care of their business, young Tracy and his brothers passed the time in the Ogden City Library. Although his brothers liked to read stories of great heroes in fiction, Tracy became interested in real life heroes, particularly men like Thomas Edison. Tracy determined that one day he would work for Edison's company, General Electric.
On one occasion when his fourth grade teacher asked everyone in the class what they wanted to be when they grew up, Tracy piped up and said that he wanted to be scientist for General Electric.
Tracy earned his associate degree in 1939 from Weber College and in 1941 married Ida-Rose Langford. His educational pursuits then took him to the University of Utah where he earned his B.S. in 1942 and a master’s degree in 1943.
Tracy’s education was interrupted by World War II while he served in the Navy until 1946.
After the war, Tracy and his wife began looking for a place to finish a doctorate. They had many options, but finally decided on the University of Utah because there Tracy would be able to study under famed scientist Henry B. Eyring. It was under Dr. Eyring’s tutelage that Tracy began thinking about the theoretical basis for the conversion of carbon to diamond. This feat was something that man had been trying to do since 1797 when it was first proven that diamond is an allotropic form of carbon.
In 1948, with a doctorate degree fresh in hand, Dr. Hall fulfilled his childhood dream by going to work for General Electric Research labs in Schenectady, NY.
See a picture of the GE research labs
In 1951 GE had recently begun a program to attempt to synthesize diamonds from carbon and had assigned Drs. Bundy and Strong, physicists from the Mechanical Investigations Section, with that task.
This venture was undertaken because diamond, being the hardest substance known to man, is very valuable in its industrial applications for tools. The strategic importance of industrial diamonds was especially critical in the post-war economy. In any event, GE management reasoned that high-pressure research would yield valuable information, even if the holy grail of diamond synthesis were not achieved.
Read the history of diamond making attempts
Herman Leibhafsky, a director in the chemistry department, suggested that a chemist be added to "Project Superpressure," as it was called. He was of the opinion that creating diamond was as much a chemical problem as a pressure problem. This hypothesis was supported by the fact that diamond synthesis had not been achieved despite experiments having been run at pressures well into the "diamond stable" region of the graphite/diamond phase diagram. Among those who had failed were numbered such high pressure legends as Percy W. Bridgman of Harvard.
GE management assembled the chemists at the lab and asked for volunteers. Dr. Hall, recognizing the opportunity to pursue in reality what he had considered in theory, volunteered. Shortly after Dr. Hall joined the group another chemist, Dr. R. H. Wentorf, came on board.
Meet the team who worked on Project Superpressure
The first experiments the team did were accomplished using a modified 20-ton automobile jack called a Carver press. The group designed a new, versatile press to achieve the never-before-realized goal of creating diamond from carbon. The press would cost around 125,000 1951 dollars-- and would take about two years to build. Meanwhile they modified an old water-operated Watson-Stillman press to continue their experiments. that was so leaky that rubber boots and squeegees were required to use it. This along with a small bench press would serve the entire group for much of the apparatus development phase.
See a picture of the Watson-Stillman press
In May of 1952 Dr. Hall made a trip to New York City to buy diamonds for use in the experiments. Tiny diamond chip "seed crystals" were being placed in the cells to try to induce diamond formation from the carbon.
It was one of these chips that was to play an interesting role in the history of man-made diamond.The problem of creating high pressure is very simple in theory—a decrease in volume results in increased pressure. But even the strongest materials in the typical piston configuration break at the high pressures that were being investigated. Because of this obstacle, the team had to develop with variations of seals that had been tried in the past.
Dr. Hall developed a unique variation of a progression of various piston and cylinder devices turned out by the group. While its gasketing and stroke capabilities were excellent it suffered from the common problem in piston and cylinder devices--failure at the junction of the side walls and bottom of the bore. Using out of the box thinking he solved this problem by eliminating the bottom and using two tops “back to back.” Thus the device called the "belt" was born.
Dr. Hall credits some of the success that subsequently occurred to drafting classes he had taken in high school and college. A self-described "seat of the pants mechanical engineer," Tracy was able to transfer his ideas to workable devices that he could take to the machine shop.
Dr. Hall enlisted the help of a friendly machinist who agreed to make his "belt" apparatus during slack time. There was one remaining hurdle, however. The steel that was available for the belt was not capable of holding the enormous pressures required. Tracy was able to get approval to buy the carbide that was needed carbide thanks to the intervention of his friend Leibhafsky.
See drawings of the belt apparatus
By fall of 1954, the new three-story tall double-acting press had been completed and assembled in the Knolls research laboratory overlooking the Mohawk River. While experiments were being run on the new press Drs. Hall and Wentorf continued developing the geological chemistry of the cell on the leaky Watson-Stillman press.
See a picture of the Birdsboro double-acting press
Time was running out for the group. Top-level management was ready to pull the plug on the project if something didn’t happen soon. A breakthrough was desperately needed.
The breakthrough was to come, of all places, from a meteorite. The team’s studies had revealed that diamonds were found in fragments of meteorites, embedded in a substance called “troilite.” The team began experiments with various different catalysts in the cells.
On December 15, 1954, Dr. Strong's December 8th experiment came back from the polishing shop with the apology that it couldn't be polished because it was too hard. Upon investigation, the team found an extra diamond crystal embedded in the cell at one end.
On the morning of December 16th, 1954, Dr. Hall used his new carbide belt apparatus to run an experiment with troilite and tantalum on the leaky, old press. A surprise awaited him upon breaking open the cell. "My eyes caught the flashing light from dozens of tiny crystals." Dr. Hall was to say later. "My hands began to tremble; my heart beat rapidly; my knees weakened and no longer gave support--I knew that diamonds had finally been made by man."
Read about Dr. Hall's experience in his own words
Subsequent tests and duplication runs convinced both Dr. Hall and GE management that he had indeed succeeded in transforming carbon to diamond. Run after run produced diamonds using Dr. Hall's device,
See a picture of the first diamonds made by man
On December 31, 1954, Hugh Woodbury became the first person to duplicate another's claim to diamond making.
See the X-ray diffraction of the first man-made diamonds
On February 15 of the following year, GE held a press conference and announced to the world that they had successfully synthesized diamonds. A tiny diamond crystal was presented to General Electric CEO Ralph J. Cordiner in honor of the occasion. This diamond was the one that had been found in Dr. Strong’s December 8th experiment.
Some controversy has clouded the event due to the fact that the diamond presented in commemoration of the synthesis of diamond turned out to be an extra natural diamond chip, not a synthetic diamond. Apparently an additional seed crystal had contaminated Strong’s experiment. This explains why the team was unable to duplicate the December 8th experiment.
The discrepancy was brought to light by Strong himself. After being prompted by Dr. Robert M. Hazen, Strong ran tests not available in the ‘50s and determined the chip was indeed a natural diamond crystal. He published his finding in the September 2, 1993 issue of Nature magazine—the same publication that carried the original diamond article.
Read the analysis of the diamond chip
The culmination of 150 years of attempts to synthesize diamond would seem to merit a Nobel prize, but the number of scientists on the GE team exceed the maximum allowable three recipients for the prize. GE was granted a patent for Diamond Synthesis. The team members, Hall, Bundy, Strong, Wentorf and Bovenkerk were each given a US savings Bond. Dr. Hall was given another US Savings Bond for his belt apparatus (US Patent No. 2,941,248).
Other patents were granted for other apparatus developed by the group, but the Hall Belt was the most practical and was later scaled up to become the first production apparatus.
As the industry became aware of the achievement, Dr. Hall found himself a hot commodity in the scientific community, with many high-tech firms of the day seeking him out with job offers. In 1955 he left GE and accepted a position with Brigham Young University as a full professor of Chemistry and Director of Research. It was there that Dr. Hall designed a completely new machine. In 1957 he completed the first tetrahedral press and submitted it for a patent (No. 2,918,699).
Browse an index of patents that Dr. Hall holds
Dr. Hall continued to build and sell the presses and soon came up with an improved design called a cubic press.
Explore the evolution of diamond presses
In 1966, Dr. Hall, in cooperation with two
other professors at BYU, formed a company called Megadiamond to manufacture
diamonds and high pressure equipment. Megadiamond exists to this day
as a company owned by Smith Tool. Other companies that have formed as
products of that venture include Novatek, US Synthetic, and PreCorp.
Dr. Hall in
November of 1999
Posing with one his early tetrahedral presses
When queried as to what he considers the greatest of all his
accomplishments Dr. Hall will simply say "Home and family. That's
the most important." Dr. Hall remains active in church and
community in addition to operating a tree farm and continuing to dabble in
press design.
For nearly 40 years, slmost every diamond-making press in the world was based on one of the designs that Dr. Hall invented. In addition to diamonds, these presses are used to make other superhard materials such as Cubic Boron Nitride (CBN), the substance invented by Dr. Hall's co-worker Robert Wentorf.
Manufactured diamonds are used in aerospace, manufacturing, mining, and automotive industries; they are found in masonry saws, mining drill bits, polishing machinery, and cutting tools. In fact, it would be difficult to find a segment of industry where industrial diamonds are not used.
Countless jobs and billions of dollars of American productivity are the direct result of Dr. Hall's work. In 1954 industrial diamond consumption was 14 million carats--all from natural sources. By 1996 industrial diamond consumption had expanded to 505 million carats, 90% of which was manufactured diamond (Source: Industrial Diamond Association).
While the creation of diamonds is an astounding scientific achievement, the significance of Dr. Hall's work lies in the social contribution of his inventions. Industrial diamonds have significantly reduced the cost of drilling oil wells. Dental work is quicker, cheaper and more painless thanks to industrial diamond instruments. Eye glasses that once took weeks to order are now available in an hour. Road repairs that once required noisy, dirty, and bone-jarring jackhammers can now be prepared with precision using diamond saw blades.
It would be safe to say that there is no American whose life is not significantly impacted by the used of industrial diamonds. Much of the credit for this can be given a young farm boy who enjoyed reading about Thomas Edison in the public library.