By March 1933 he had written up his work on the Raman spectrum of rock salt, just as Hitler was coming to power, and was awarded the DPhil degree by his external examiner, Werner Heisenberg.
Backman moved to England in 1933, having won a fellowship to Imperial College, where he joined Sydney Chapman's Mathematics Department.
[1] In the late 1930s Thomson was investigating the possibility of achieving a sustained chain reaction of uranium fission by neutrons.
"Under Blackman’s leadership the electron diffraction group flourished for many years, and a total of about 20 research students completed doctorates between 1949 and 1977".
[5][6] During his career Blackman was a member of the International Commission on Electron Diffraction, 1957–66, and of the Safety in Mines Research Advisory Board, Ministry of Power, 1963–74.