Martin Julian BuergerBorn 8 Apr 1903; died 1986 .American crystallographer and mineralogist who made significant contributions to the theory of finding the arrangement of atoms in crystals and devised or improved many of the standard methods, techniques, and instruments of modern crystal-structure analysis. In the 1930s, he revised the powder camera into its present form. He invented the precession method of x-ray diffraction analysis now commonly used for obtaining the unit cell and space group of a crystal. In 1952, the first counter diffractometer designed especially for measuring the intensities of the diffraction from single crystals was built in Buerger's laboratory, which in 1961 was converted into the first automated diffractometer. He wrote a number of books on crystallography. |
