in full Max Theodor Felix von Laue (1879–1960), German theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his discovery of the diffraction of X rays in crystals, laying the foundation for solid-state physics (see PHYSICS,), a field instrumental in the development of electronics, and for his contribution to the study of SUPERCONDUCTIVITY, (q.v.).

Born in Pfaffendorf, near Koblenz, Laue was educated at Strasbourg, Göttingen, and Berlin universities. At Berlin, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1903, he studied under the German physicist Max Planck, the founder of the QUANTUM THEORY, (q.v.). Laue was Planck’s assistant at the Berlin Institute for Theoretical Physics in 1905, and he taught at several universities, including Munich (1909), Zürich (1912), Frankfurt am Main (1914), and Würzburg (1916), before he joined the faculty at Berlin University in 1919, where he remained until 1943. From 1946 to 1951 he taught at the University in Göttingen and was an acting director of the Max Planck Institute there. Laue was also a director of the Fritz Haber Institute of Physical Chemistry in Berlin-Dahlem (1951–58).

Early in his career Laue was interested in the science of OPTICS, (q.v.), particularly in the phenomenon of INTERFERENCE, (q.v.) of light. In 1907 he published a proof of a formula—by the French physicist Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau (1819–96)—for the velocity of light in moving water as part of a demonstration of the validity of the special theory of relativity (see RELATIVITY,) postulated by Albert Einstein.

In 1912, Laue suggested an experiment that involved sending X rays through crystals. He found that the crystal structure caused the X rays to diffract in a pattern which revealed the symmetrical arrangements of the atoms in crystal. Verified experimentally, this discovery demonstrated that X rays are light waves (see WAVE MOTION,) of very short wavelength. For this work, which opened the field of X-ray structural analysis, Laue was awarded the 1914 Nobel Prize in physics.

See also CRYSTAL,; LIGHT,; X RAY,.