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In Memory of Paul Larson

Paul Larson, who has been an R&D scientist at PHI for more than 30 years, passed away on October 3, 2022.

Paul’s passing is a major loss to those at PHI who had the honor of working with him during his 31-year career at PHI.  Paul was a brilliant physicist who made giant contributions to the success of the PHI XPS product line through his innovative development of new technology.  Paul was awarded 12 patents for his inventions during his career.  His crowning achievement was the development of a focusing ellipsoidal monochromator, which is the key technology used in all PHI Scanning X-ray Microprobes and is still used in the latest generation products today. 

Paul was born in 1943 in Minneapolis, he was a graduate of Roosevelt High School, Augsburg College (BS) and Harvard University (MS, PhD). He trained as a physical chemist, Paul always explained he was “more of a physicist than a chemist.” His first professional job was in research and development at McPherson in suburban Boston.

His career took him next to Hach Chemical in Fort Collins, Colorado and Ames, IA.  Paul joined PHI in 1985 and spent his career solving the most challenging technical problems with each new generation of instrumentation.

Paul contributed technical excellence and true teamwork to the culture at PHI, and he will be truly missed.