After the discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895, and of the principles of X-ray diffraction by Laue and the Bragg family, it still took several decades for the benefits of diffraction "imaging" to be fully recognized, and the first useful experimental techniques to be developed. First systematic reports on laboratory topography techniques date from the early 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s, topographic investigations played a role in detecting the nature of defects and improving crystal growth methods for Germanium and (later) Silicon as materials for semiconductor microelectronics.