James Howard Scofield

James Howard Scofield died Nov. 24, 2025. He was 92.

Scofield was born Oct. 10, 1933 in Gary, Indiana. He grew up on a farm in Portage Township, Indiana, where he graduated as valedictorian of his high school class. He went to Indiana University in Bloomington where he earned his doctor of philosophy in physics. He then went to Stanford University for two years of postdoctoral work. In 1962, he began working as a theoretical atomic physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He was one of the key world leaders for decades in the detailed Relativistic Hartree-Slater calculations of photo-ionization, collisional excitation, and other important x-ray processes in heavy atoms and ions. As such, his work strongly impacted a broad range of soft and hard x-ray applications, such as materials sciences studies done at x-ray light sources, x-ray crystallographic determinations of structures, the development of x-ray lasers (XRLs), the use of x-ray spectroscopy for diagnosis of high temperature plasmas, as well as fundamental atomic physics in association with spectroscopic experiments done at LLNL’s EBIT (electron beam ion trap). In 1984, he was part of the team that demonstrated the first x-ray laser gain pumped by a hot plasma amplifier. Subsequently his work enabled the design and demonstration of higher-Z x-ray lasers and their use for applications. His calculations explained observations of hyper fine splitting in x-ray lasers (1993) and the anomalous performance of a titanium plasma laser (1994). His work helped explain new plasma effects on the refractive index of XRLs used for interferometry (2006). After retiring, he continued to volunteer part-time at LLNL until 2017.

He is preceded in death by his oldest son, William Howard Scofield, and his younger brother, Robert Scofield. He leaves behind his beloved wife, Patricia Scofield, daughter Ava Scofield, son Daniel Scofield, daughter-in-law Mary Bockover, five grandchildren, sister-in-law Lynn Scofield, as well as his cherished foster sister from childhood, Sonja Jean Benson.

A celebration of his life will be held in Fellowship Hall at Asbury Methodist Church, 4743 East Ave., Livermore on Saturday, March 21 at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, if you feel inclined, the family welcomes trees planted in his name via Callaghan’s website, donations to the Audubon Society or acts of kindness of your choice.