Quasicrystal electron diffraction image, 1982. Electron diffraction image of an aluminium-manganese alloy that led to the discovery of quasicrystals and a Nobel Prize for Dan Shechtman. This research took place at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now known as the National Institute of Standards and Technology). The discovery was made by Israeli materials scientist Dan Shechtman (born 1941). Quasicrystals are ordered but not periodic. This discovery was controversial at the time, but eventually saw Shechtman awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.