K. Alex Müller

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K. Alex Müller
Müller in 2001
Born
Karl Alexander Müller

(1927-04-20)20 April 1927
Basel, Switzerland
Died9 January 2023(2023-01-09) (aged 95)
Zurich, Switzerland
EducationETH Zurich (grad. 1952, 1958)
Known forDiscovery of high-temperature superconductivity
Spouse
Ingeborg Marie Louise Winkler
​
​
(m. 1956)​
Children2
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
ThesisParamagnetische Resonanz von Fe3+ in SrTiO3 Einkristallen (1958)
Georg Busch
Doctoral students
Georg Bednorz

Karl Alexander Müller (20 April 1927 – 9 January 2023) was a Swiss physicist. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz for their discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials.[1]

Early life and education

Karl Alexander Müller was born on 20 April 1927 in Basel, Switzerland, the son of Paul Rudolf Müller and Irma Feigenbaum.[2] His mother was Jewish.[3] His family immediately moved to Salzburg, Austria, where his father was studying music. Alex and his mother then moved to Dornach, the home of his maternal grandparents. Then they moved to Lugano, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, where he learned to speak Italian fluently. His mother died when he was 11.[4]

Müller was sent to school at the Evangelical College in Schiers, in the eastern part of Switzerland. Here he studied from 1938 to 1945, obtaining his baccalaureate (Matura). He then enrolled in the Physics and Mathematics Department of ETH Zurich. He took courses by Wolfgang Pauli, who made a deep impression on him. After receiving his Diplom in 1952,[2] he worked for one year, then returned to ETH Zurich for a Ph.D., submitting his thesis at the end of 1957.[5]

Career

After graduating in 1958, Müller joined the Battelle Memorial Institute as the manager of a magnetic resonance group. During this time, he became a lecturer at the University of Zürich. In 1963, he accepted an offer as a research staff member at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Rüschlikon, where he remained until his retirement. In parallel, he maintained his affiliation with the University of Zurich, where he was appointed a professor in 1970. He became an IBM Fellow in 1982.[5]

Research

Müller in 2002

For his undergraduate diploma work, Müller studied under G. Busch. He worked on the Hall Effect in gray tin, a semimetal.

Between his undergraduate degree and beginning his graduate studies, he worked for one year in the Department of Industrial Research at ETH on the Eidophor large-scale display system.

At IBM his research for almost 15 years centered on SrTiO3 (strontium titanate) and related perovskite compounds. He studied their photochromic properties when doped with various transition-metal ions; their chemical binding, ferroelectric and soft-mode properties; and the critical and multicritical phenomena of their structural phase transitions. Important highlights of this research have been published in a book written together with Tom Kool from the University of Amsterdam (publisher: World Scientific).

Personal life and death

In the spring of 1956, Müller married Ingeborg Marie Louise Winkler. They had a son, Eric, in the summer of 1957, and a daughter, Sylvia, in 1960.[2]

Müller died on 9 January 2023 in Zurich at the age of 95.[6][7]

Nobel Prize-winning work

In the early 1980s, Müller began searching for substances that would become superconductive at higher temperatures. The highest critical temperature (Tc) attainable at that time was about 23 K. In 1983 Müller recruited Georg Bednorz to IBM, to help systematically test various oxides. A few recent studies had indicated these materials might superconduct, but experts who knew about Müller's idea thought it was “crazy”.[8] In 1986 the two researchers succeeded in achieving superconductivity in lanthanum barium copper oxide (LBCO) at a temperature of 35 K. Over the previous 75 years the critical temperature had risen from 11 K in 1911 to 23 K in 1973 where it had remained for 13 years. Thus 35 K was incredibly high by the prevailing standards of superconductivity research. This discovery stimulated a great deal of additional research in high-temperature superconductivity, leading to the discovery of compounds such as BSCCO (Tc = 107 K) and YBCO (T'c = 92 K).

They reported their discovery in the June 1986 issue of Zeitschrift für Physik B.[9] Before the end of the year, Shoji Tanaka at the University of Tokyo and then Paul Chu at the University of Houston had each independently confirmed their result. A couple of months later Chu achieved superconductivity at 93 K in YBCO, triggering a stampede of scientific interest exemplified by the 1987 "Woodstock of physics", at which Müller was a featured presenter.[10]

In 1987, Müller and Bednorz were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics—the shortest time between the discovery and the prize award for any scientific Nobel.

Recognition

Awards

Year Organization Award Citation Ref.
1986 Switzerland Marcel Benoist Foundation Marcel Benoist Prize[a] — [11]
1987 Sweden Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Prize in Physics[a] "For their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials." [1]
1987 Austria Austrian Trade Association Wilhelm Exner Medal — [12]
1987 United States Duke University Fritz London Memorial Prize[b] "For their pioneering work in the field of high Tc oxide superconductors. Their discovery of superconductivity in the barium lanthanum copper oxides has sparked a worldwide research effort which is making superconductivity a commercially important technology." [13]
1987 West Germany Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities Dannie Heineman Prize[a] "For their research in physics." [14]
1988 United States American Physical Society International Prize for New Materials[c] "For discoveries of superconducting oxide materials with high transition temperatures." [15]
1988 Switzerland European Physical Society EPS Europhysics Prize[a] "For the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity." [16]

Honorary degrees

Year University Degree Ref.
1988 Belgium KU Leuven — [17]
1988 United States Boston University Doctor of Science [18]
1988 West Germany Technische Universität Darmstadt — [19]
1992 Norway Norwegian Institute of Technology Doctor of Technology [20]

Memberships

Year Organization Type Ref.
1989 United States National Academy of Sciences International Member [21]
1991 Switzerland Swiss Physical Society Honorary Member [22]

See also

Notes

  1. Shared with Georg Bednorz.
  2. Shared with Georg Bednorz, John Clarke, and Jun Kondō.
  3. Shared with Georg Bednorz and Paul Ching Wu Chu.

References

  1. "Nobel Prize in Physics 1987". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 19 September 2008. Retrieved 9 October 2008.
  2. Dictionnaire Historique de la Suisse (19 Nov 2009).
  3. "Jewish Nobel Prize Winners in Physics". www.jinfo.org. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  4. "In Memoriam Karl Alexander Müller". sps.ch. Archived from the original on 8 May 2026. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  5. "K. Alex Müller". Nobel Foundation. Archived from the original on 10 January 2026. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  6. Gegen den Strom schwimmen. In: Universität Zürich, 17 January 2023.
  7. Physik Nobelpreisträger Karl Alex Müller stirbt mit 95 Jahren. In: Swissinfo.ch, 17 January 2023.
  8. Holton, Gerald. The Scientific Imagination, p. xxv (Harvard University Press, 1998).
  9. J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Müller (1986). "Possible high Tc superconductivity in the Ba−La−Cu−O system". Z. Phys. B. 64 (1): 189–193. Bibcode:1986ZPhyB..64..189B. doi:10.1007/BF01303701. S2CID 118314311.
  10. Chang, Kenneth (6 March 2007). "Physicists Remember When Superconductors Were Hot". New York Times. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  11. "Past Laureates". www.marcel-benoist.ch. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 4 January 2007.
  12. "Karl Alexander Müller". www.wilhelmexner.org. Archived from the original on 7 February 2025. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  13. "Fritz London Memorial Prize". physics.duke.edu. Retrieved 10 October 2023.
  14. "Dannie Heineman Prize". adw-goe.de. Archived from the original on 31 October 2025. Retrieved 14 May 2026.
  15. "James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials". www.aps.org. Retrieved 8 October 2023.
  16. "EPS Europhysics Prize". www.eps.org. Archived from the original on 16 September 2023. Retrieved 5 December 2014.
  17. "List of past KU Leuven doctores honoris causa". www.kuleuven.be. Archived from the original on 7 December 2024. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  18. "Past Honorary Degrees". www.bu.edu. Archived from the original on 10 October 2025. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  19. "Honorary Doctorates". www.tu-darmstadt.de. Archived from the original on 8 February 2026. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  20. "Honorary Doctors". www.ntnu.edu. Archived from the original on 1 October 2025. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
  21. "K. Alex Müller". www.nasonline.org. Archived from the original on 11 April 2026. Retrieved 21 June 2026.
  22. "Honorary members". Swiss Physical Society. Archived from the original on 8 May 2026. Retrieved 26 June 2026.

Further reading