X-ray diffraction by crystals and Bragg's law
Difracción de rayos X por cristales y ley de Bragg
- Date
- 1912-1913 · confidence high
- Place
- Munich, Germany / Leeds and Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Max von Laue; William Henry Bragg; William Lawrence Bragg
- People
- 👤 Max von Laue1879–1960👤 William Henry Bragg1862–1942👤 William Lawrence Bragg1890–1971
- Field
- Matter & energy
What was discovered
Laue demonstrates that crystals diffract X-rays, proving at once that they are waves and that crystals are periodic lattices of atoms; the Braggs formulate the law that allows the structure to be deduced. X-ray crystallography is born.
Lawrence Bragg received the 1915 Nobel Prize at the age of 25, the youngest ever in Physics. Merged with 'X-ray diffraction and Bragg's law (structural crystallography)' (duplicate, 23-09-2026).
What it led to
- Determination of structures (salt, diamond, proteins, DNA)
- Solid-state physics
- Structural molecular biology
- Materials science
- X-ray crystallography
- Structure of minerals, metals, proteins and DNA
Built on
- X-rays1895
- Theory of crystal lattices
- Fraunhofer diffraction
- Laue-Friedrich-Knipping experiment (1912)
Made possible
- Collagen triple helix1954
- Protein crystallography
- Phase analysis in metallurgy
- diffractometer
- drug structure determination