Crystals as a diffraction medium
Laue received his doctorate under Max Planck and later worked in Munich. In 1912 he proposed that the periodic arrangement within crystals could diffract short-wavelength X-rays. Walter Friedrich and Paul Knipping performed the experiments, while Laue developed the mathematical explanation.
Structural investigation
Diffraction patterns connected X-ray wavelengths with arrangements inside crystals, laying foundations for structural analysis. William Henry and William Lawrence Bragg subsequently developed this research. Laue’s wider work included relativity, X-ray optics and superconductivity.
Institutions and political conditions
Under Nazi rule Laue defended relativity and protested the dismissal of Einstein’s contribution after his resignation from the Berlin Academy. After the war he helped rebuild German research and became director of the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin in 1951, continuing work on X-rays.
References: [1]