Davisson, Clinton Joseph (1881-1958)

US physicist who in 1927 made the first experimental observation of the wave nature of electrons, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1937. He shared the award with George Thomson who carried through the same research independently.

Born in Illinois, Davisson worked under Owen Richardson at Princeton before joining Bell Telephone Labs in 1917.

Davisson was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and studied at the University of Chicago. He worked for the Western Electric Company (later Bell Telephone) in New York 1917-46. With Lester Germer (1896-1971), Davisson discovered that electrons can undergo diffraction, in accordance with French physicist Louis de Broglie's theory that electrons and all other elementary particles can show wavelike behaviour.

Davisson and Germer used a single nickel crystal in their experiments. The atoms were in a cubic lattice with atoms at the apex of cubes, and the electrons were directed at the plane of atoms at 45° to the regular end plane. Electrons of a known velocity were directed at this plane and those emitted were detected by a Faraday chamber. In January 1927, results showed that at a certain velocity of incident electrons, diffraction occurred, producing outgoing beams that could be related to the interplanar distance. The wavelength of the beams was determined, and this was then used with the known velocity of the electrons to verify de Broglie's hypothesis. The first work gave results with an error of 1-2% but later systematic work produced results in complete agreement. Similar experiments at higher voltages using metal foil were carried out later the same year at Aberdeen University, Scotland, by George Thomson, (the son of J J Thomson). The particle-wave duality of subatomic particles was established beyond doubt, and both men were awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize for Physics.