Detecting radiocarbon in nature Carbon-14 was first discovered in 1940 by Martin Kamen (1913–2002) and Samuel Ruben (1913–1943), who created it artificially using a cyclotron accelerator at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley.

Who invented carbon-14?

Willard Libby Radiocarbon dating/Inventors Chemist Willard Libby first realized that carbon-14 could act like a clock in the 1940s. He won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for coming up with the method.