Karl Alexander Müller

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Alex Müller on February 15, 2001

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

Müller worked at the Zurich Research Lab of IBM , where he together with Bednorz the first high temperature superconductor synthesized the world. Even then, Müller had the status of an IBM Fellow , which enabled him to work freely and largely independently in a research area. Georg Bednorz began in Müller's laboratory with a thesis on strontium titanate . Later both worked on systematic investigations of various oxides. Some publications have indicated that there are potential superconductors among these materials. A revolutionary idea at the time, as oxides typically have insulating or semiconducting properties. Until now, superconductivity was only known in metals. The highest known transition temperature up to the work of Müller and Bednorz was shown by an alloy of niobium and germanium Nb 3 Ge with 23 Kelvin. In 1986 they both synthesized a barium-lanthanum cuprate Ba-La-Cu-O (Ba x La 5-x Cu 5 O 5 (3-y) x = 1 and 0.75, y> 0) for the first time, in which they were able to measure superconductivity and a transition temperature of 35 K.

In April 1986 they published their results in the Zeitschrift für Physik . In the same year, several working groups confirmed these work results. The following year they both received the Nobel Prize in Physics. This was the shortest time interval between the discovery and the award of the Nobel Prize. Müller has received around a dozen honorary doctorates since 1987, from the Technical University of Munich , the University of Geneva , the University of Salzburg and the University of Leipzig . He is also the recipient of various other science prizes, including the Marcel Benoist Prize (1986). In 1987 he received the Fritz London Memorial Prize . In 1994 he was admitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences as a foreign member , and in 1989 to the National Academy of Sciences .

From 1970 to 1994 Müller was a physics professor at the University of Zurich . Today he lives in retirement in Hedingen ; his community made him an honorary citizen in 1988. He is married and has a son and a daughter.

Fonts

  • Paramagnetic resonance of Fe 3+ in SrTiO 3 single crystals. Dissertation. ETH Zurich 1958 ( abstract ).
  • with JG Bednorz: Possible High T c Superconductivity in the Ba-La-Cu-O system. In: Journal of Physics. B: Condensed matter. Volume 64, 1986, ISSN  0722-3277 , pp. 189-193. doi : 10.1007 / BF01303701 .
  • Editor with Tom W. Kool: Properties of perovskites and other oxides, World Scientific 2010.

Web links

Commons : Karl Alexander Müller  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Portrait of Müller at the University of Zurich, pdf
personal data
SURNAME Müller, Karl Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Müller, Alex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss physicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel