Erwin LEWY_BERTAUT, Crystallographer, honorary research director at CNRS, and member of the French Académie des Sciences.

... he was an eclectic man, who had learned Latin, Greek. French. English, Law, Chemistry and Crystallography...
... he contributed enormously to neutron crystallography...
... he and his laboratories became internationally renowned in crystallography, in neutron diffraction and in magnetism.
... he promoted the construction of the "ILL" Institut Laue Langevin...

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Erwin Lewy was born in Leobschütz...
... he landed in Bordeaux where he undertook graduate studies in chemistry,
... he joined the Laboratoire Central des Poudres...
... he had to flee and went to work with Professor Louis Néel in Grenoble

Erwin LEWY obtained a research fellowship from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) under the name "Félix Bertaut" and he chose a new thesis subject: "X-ray study of the statistical distribution of the size of iron grains"

... he defended his PHD thesis in February 1949.
... he could with Ray PEPINSKY's help, visit the Brookhaven National Laboratory
... he created the "Diffraction Neutronique" Laboratory.
... he head the "Laboratoire de Cristallographie"
... he became famous with their discovery of garnet ferrites (with FORRAT and PAUTHENET).

Extracted from the article: "In memoriam published in Journal of Applied Crystallography, J.Appl. Cryst, 37, 349 - 350 (2004)
Read the full article: In honour of Erwin Félix Lewy-Bertaut (PDF 1.695 MB)