Electron diffraction
Difracción de electrones (confirmación de las ondas de materia)
- Date
- 1927 · confidence high
- Place
- Bell Labs, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Clinton Davisson; Lester Germer; George Paget Thomson
- People
- 👤 Clinton Joseph Davisson1881–1958👤 George Paget Thomson1892–1975👤 Lester Germer1896–1971
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Electrons scattered by a nickel crystal form a diffraction pattern with the wavelength predicted by De Broglie; G. P. Thomson confirms it with thin films in Aberdeen. Electrons are also waves.
J. J. Thomson demonstrated that the electron is a particle and his son G. P. Thomson that it is a wave; both received the Nobel Prize.
What it led to
- Electron microscope
- Electron diffraction for surface structure
- Confirmation of wave mechanics
- Particle interferometry
Built on
- X-ray diffraction (crystallography)1912–1913
- De Broglie hypothesis1924
- An accident that recrystallised the nickel sample
Made possible
- Electron microscope1931–1933
- Quasicrystals1982-1984
- LEED (low-energy electron diffraction)