Those two, Davisson and Germer, were unaware of Elsasser's suggestion, Schrodinger's complete theory of them, or the inspiration of the graduate student who proposed their existence and claimed that their frequency was equal to their total energy divided by Planck's constant.  
Their existence for neutral atoms and molecules was demonstrated in 1930 by Stern and Estermann, and the first method for detecting them was proposed in 1925 by Walter Elsasser. Two scientists at Bell Labs were the first to detect them, which happened accidentally while studying electron reflection from a nickel target that had been oxidized. Those two, Davisson and Germer, were unaware of Elsasser's suggestion, Schrodinger's complete theory of them, or the inspiration of the graduate student who proposed their existence and claimed that their frequency was equal to their total energy divided by Planck's constant.  FTP name these manifestations of wave-particle duality, matter waves named for the French physicist who proposed them and their eponymous wavelength.
Their existence for neutral atoms and molecules was demonstrated in 1930 by Stern and Estermann, and the first method for detecting them was proposed in 1925 by Walter Elsasser.
DeBroglie waves [prompt on 'matter waves' or 'particle waves']