Structure Research under Laue

Even though in the post-war period Laue was more active as a scientific administrator than a researcher, he did make an effort to continue his earlier research projects. For example, he tried to extend the dynamical theory of X-ray diffraction and to develop a theory of superconductivity based both on Maxwell s thermodynamics equations and the experiments of his former assistant Fritz London. Laue was particularly interested in new conceptual approaches to structure research, especially ones based on the use of X-rays, and he brought Gerhard Borrmann and Rolf Hosemann to Dahlem to promote work in this vein. 

Borrmann was already quite familiar with the Dahlem research institutes. He worked under Laue at the KWI for Physics in 1935 while a student of Walther Kos-sel, and he moved to Hechingen in 1943 along with the rest of the institute. There he remained true to the line of research he had begun under Kossel in Danzig, the most important result of which was the identification of the Borrmann effect demonstrated in 1941. The Bormann effect refers to the anomalously low absorption of X-rays by ideal crystals when the X-rays strike the ciystals at angles that 

21 Borrmaim to Laue, 1 July 1949, MPGA, Nachlass Laue, Nr. 324. 

22 Laue to Borrmaim, 28 October 1950 und 7 November 1950. TG-chiv der MPG, Ibid. 

23 SektionsprotokoU, 11 June 1956, MPGA, CPI Akten, Niederschriften der Sitzungen. Senatspro-tokoll, 12 June 1956, MPGA, Abt. II, Rep. lA, SenatsprotokoUe. 

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Independent of the core committee, the heads of those departments involved in structural research, under the guidance of Hosemann, composed their own proposal for the Institute. Their vision of the future development of the FHI harkened back to Laue s earlier plans and involved once again building up the Institute into a center for the use of diffraction and interference methods in atomic and molecular structure research. In 1967, their concept paper was passed on to MPG President Adolf Butenandt, who had taken office in 1960. It was also pointed out to him that the proposal it laid out was in step with new developments in the international research community materials science was enjoying strong backing, particularly in the United States. At least in the fields of electron and X-ray... 

The revival of the Laue technique has been made possible by the polychromatic nature of the emitted spectrum and the associated high brightness. The study of time resolved phenomena in biological structures (as well as chemistry and solid state physics) with this method is a major research and development effort that is under way. 

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