K. Alex Müller

Karl Alexander Müller, called Alex Müller, ( born April 20, 1927 in Basel ) is a Swiss physicist who in 1987, together with Georg Bednorz the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their pioneering discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials ".

Müller worked at the Zurich Research Laboratory IBM, where he synthesized the first high-temperature superconductors of the world along with Bednorz. Müller had already at that time the status of IBM Fellows, enabling him to work freely and largely independently on a research field. Georg Bednorz began in Müller's laboratory with a thesis on strontium titanate. Later, both were working on systematic studies of various oxides. Some publications gave evidence that there are potential superconductors among these materials. At that time a revolutionary idea, since oxides typically have insulating or semiconducting properties. Superconductivity was known up to now only for metals. The up to the work of Müller and Bednorz highest known transition temperature exhibited an alloy of niobium and germanium Nb3Ge with 23 Kelvin. 1986 synthesized both for the first time a barium - lanthanum cuprate La2CuO4, in which they could measure superconductivity and a transition temperature of 35 K.

In April 1986, they published their findings in the Journal of Physics. In the same year, several research groups confirmed these results. The following year, both then received the Nobel Prize for physics. This has been the shortest time interval between discovery and the Nobel Prize. He received a dozen honorary doctorates, the Technical University of Munich, the University of Geneva and the University of Leipzig since 1987. He is also winner of several other academic awards, including the Marcel Benoist Prize ( 1986).

From 1970 to 1994, Mueller Professor of Physics at the University of Zurich. Today he lives in Hedingen retired; his residential community made ​​him an honorary citizen. In 1987 he received the Fritz London Memorial Prize.

Writings

  • Paramagnetic resonance of Fe3 in SrTiO3 single crystals. Dissertation. ETH Zurich, 1958 ( Abstract).
  • With J. G. Bednorz: Possible High Tc Superconductivity in the Ba -La -Cu -O system. In: Journal of physics. B: Condensed matter. Volume 64, 1986, ISSN 0722-3277, pp. 189-193 (full text).
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