Francis Pettit Bundy (September 1, 1910, Columbus, Ohio – February 23, 2008, Lebanon, Ohio)[1] was an American physicist, known as a member of General Electric's team of researchers that in December 1954 created diamond chips by applying ultra high pressure (65 kbar)[2] to graphite with iron sulfide as a catalyst.
During World War II he worked in sonar research at the Harvard Underwater Sound Laboratory.
[4] In 1951 General Electric started "Project Superpressure", managed by Anthony J. Nerad, to synthesize diamonds in the laboratory.
[5] In February 1955, General Electric announced that the research team consisting of Francis P. Bundy, H. Tracy Hall, Herbert M. Strong, and Robert H. Wentorf Jr. had synthesized "tiny diamonds made from a carbonaceous material subjected to extreme pressures and temperature.
"[6] In 1977 the four team members jointly received the International Prize for New Materials, now called the James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials, for "their outstanding research contributions and inventions which include the first reproducible process for making diamond; the synthesis of cubic boron nitride; and the development of the high pressure processes that are required to produce these materials.