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Clinton Davisson and Lester Germer measured strong angular structure in electron scattering from a nickel crystal. Its dependence on incident electron energy agreed with a wavelength set by the electron momentum through the de Broglie wavelength. The crystal therefore supplied a periodic structure against which electron wave behavior could be tested. The Davisson–Germer experiment linked a tunable electron source and angularly resolved detector with the theoretical idea of matter waves.^[ref]

A physicist whose route into research included a telephone-company job when he could not afford to continue at Chicago. He later worked at Bell Telephone Laboratories, retiring in 1946 after 29 years, and taught physics at Virginia in 1947–1949.^[ref] The Davisson–Germer experiment connects that industrial-laboratory work to electron diffraction and matter waves.

Lester Germer and Clinton Davisson observed electron diffraction from a nickel crystal. The intensity of scattered electrons varied strongly with direction and incident electron energy, as expected when a crystal's periodic structure acts on a wave. Agreement between the inferred wavelength and the de Broglie wavelength connected a particle's momentum with observable interference. The experiment made electron wave behavior a measured property of a material-scattering apparatus.^[ref]

Clinton Davisson and George Paget Thomson shared the award equally for demonstrating electron diffraction by crystals.^[ref] The Davisson–Germer experiment and Thomson electron transmission diffraction experiment connect different apparatus geometries to the matter waves.