Karl Alexander Müller (20 April 1927 – 9 January 2023) was a Swiss physicist and
Nobel laureate
The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
. He received the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
in Physics in 1987 with
Georg Bednorz
Johannes Georg Bednorz (; born 16 May 1950) is a German physicist who, together with K. Alex Müller, discovered high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics, for which they shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Life and work
Bednorz was bor ...
for their work in
superconductivity in ceramic materials.
Biography
Müller was born in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
, Switzerland, on 20 April 1927, to Irma (née Feigenbaum) and Paul Müller. His family immediately moved to
Salzburg
Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872.
The town is on the site of the ...
, Austria, where his father was studying music. Alex and his mother then moved to
Dornach
: ''Dornach is also a quarter of the French city of Mulhouse and the Scots name for Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands, and Dòrnach is the Gaelic name for Dornoch in the Scottish Highlands.''
Dornach (Swiss German: ''Dornech'') is a municipalit ...
, near
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
, to the home of his grandparents. Then they moved to
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
, in the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
-speaking part of Switzerland, where he learned to speak Italian fluently. His mother died when he was 11.
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.
Education
After his mother’s death, Müller was sent to school at the Evangelical College in
Schiers
Schiers is a Swiss village in the Prättigau and a municipality in the political district Prättigau/Davos Region in the canton of Graubünden. The first concrete girder bridge ever built, Salginatobel Bridge, is located in Schiers. Designed by R ...
, in the eastern part of Switzerland. Here he studied from 1938 to 1945, obtaining his baccalaureate (Matura).
Müller then enrolled in the Physics and Mathematics Department of the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology The Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology are two institutes of higher education in Switzerland (part of the ETH Domain):
* Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne
Swiss may refer to:
* the adjectival form of Switzerland
*Swiss people ...
(ETH Zürich). He took courses by
Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics fo ...
, who made a deep impression on him. After receiving his
Diplom
A ''Diplom'' (, from grc, δίπλωμα ''diploma'') is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus ...
, he worked for one year, then returned to ETH Zürich for a PhD, submitting his thesis at the end of 1957.
Career
Müller joined the
Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply Battelle) is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation u ...
in
Geneva
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, soon becoming the manager of a magnetic resonance group. During this time he became a
lecturer
Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...
at the
University of Zürich
The University of Zürich (UZH, german: Universität Zürich) is a public research university located in the city of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 f ...
. In 1963 he accepted an offer as a ''research staff member'' at the
IBM Zürich Research Laboratory in
Rüschlikon
Rüschlikon is a municipality in the district of Horgen in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. It is located on the west shore of Lake Zürich.
Coat of arms
Its coat of arms features a white shield showing a red rose with a yellow center and ...
, where he remained until his retirement. In parallel, he maintained his affiliation with University of Zurich where he was appointed professor in 1970. From 1972 to 1985 Müller was manager of the ZRL physics department. In 1982 he became an
IBM Fellow
An IBM Fellow is an appointed position at IBM made by IBM's CEO. Typically only four to nine (eleven in 2014) IBM Fellows are appointed each year, in May or June. Fellow is the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achie ...
. He received an honorary doctorate from
Technical University of Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences.
Establis ...
and
University of Geneva
The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centu ...
. In 1987 (before winning the Nobel Prize) he got an
honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
(''laurea honoris causa'') in Physics from the
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...
.
Research
For his undergraduate diploma work, Müller studied under G. Busch. He worked on the
Hall Effect
The Hall effect is the production of a voltage difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was disco ...
in
gray tin, a
semimetal
A semimetal is a material with a very small overlap between the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band.
According to electronic band theory, solids can be classified as insulators, semiconductors, semimetals, or metals. ...
.
Between his
undergraduate degree
An undergraduate degree (also called first degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree earned by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher e ...
and beginning his
graduate studies
Postgraduate or graduate education refers to academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications pursued by post-secondary students who have earned an undergraduate (bachelor's) degree.
The organization and struc ...
, he worked for one year in the Department of Industrial Research at ETH on the
Eidophor
An Eidophor was a video projector used to create theater-sized images from an analog video signal. The name Eidophor is derived from the Greek word-roots ''eido'' and ''phor'' meaning 'image' and 'bearer' (carrier). Its basic technology was th ...
large-scale display system.
At
IBM his research for almost 15 years centered on SrTiO
3 (
strontium titanate
Strontium titanate is an oxide of strontium and titanium with the chemical formula Sr Ti O3. At room temperature, it is a centrosymmetric paraelectric material with a perovskite structure. At low temperatures it approaches a ferroelectric phase ...
) and related
perovskite
Perovskite (pronunciation: ) is a calcium titanium oxide mineral composed of calcium titanate (chemical formula ). Its name is also applied to the class of compounds which have the same type of crystal structure as (XIIA2+VIB4+X2−3), known as ...
compounds. He studied their
photochromic
Photochromism is the reversible transformation of a chemical species (photoswitch) between two forms by the absorption of electromagnetic radiation (photoisomerization), where the two forms have different absorption spectra. In plain language, th ...
properties when doped with various
transition-metal
In chemistry, a transition metal (or transition element) is a chemical element in the d-block of the periodic table (groups 3 to 12), though the elements of group 12 (and less often group 3) are sometimes excluded. They are the elements that can ...
ion
An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge.
The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conven ...
s; their
chemical binding,
ferroelectric
Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the add ...
and soft-mode properties; and the critical and multicritical phenomena of their structural
phase transition
In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states of ...
s. Important highlights of this research have been published in a book written together with
Tom Kool from the
University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
(publisher:
World Scientific
World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, along with 135 journals in various f ...
).
Death
Müller died on 9 January 2023, at the age of 95 in
Zürich
Zürich () is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. It is located in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zürich. As of January 2020, the municipality has 43 ...
.
Nobel Prize–winning work
In the early 1980s, Müller began searching for substances that would become superconductive at higher temperatures. The highest
critical temperature
Critical or Critically may refer to:
*Critical, or critical but stable, medical states
**Critical, or intensive care medicine
*Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences.
*Critical Software, a company specializing in ...
(''T''
c) 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”. In 1986 the two researchers succeeded in achieving superconductivity in
lanthanum barium copper oxide
Lanthanum barium copper oxide, or LBCO, is an inorganic compound with the formula CuBa0.15La1.85O4. It is a black solid produced by heating an intimate mixture of barium oxide, copper(II) oxide, and lanthanum oxide in the presence of oxygen. ...
(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
High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previ ...
, leading to the discovery of compounds such as
BSCCO
Bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (BSCCO, pronounced ''bisko''), is a type of cuprate superconductor having the generalized chemical formula Bi2 Sr2 Ca''n''−1 Cu''n'' O2''n''+4+''x'', with ''n'' = 2 being the most commonly stud ...
(''T''
c = 107 K) and
YBCO
Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) is a family of crystalline chemical compounds that display high-temperature superconductivity; it includes the first material ever discovered to become superconducting above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen ...
(''T
c = 92 K).
They reported their discovery in the June 1986 issue of ''
Zeitschrift für Physik B''.
Before the end of the year,
Shoji Tanaka at the
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
and then
Paul Chu at the
University of Houston
The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
had each independently confirmed their result. A couple of months later Chu achieved superconductivity at 93 K in
YBCO
Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) is a family of crystalline chemical compounds that display high-temperature superconductivity; it includes the first material ever discovered to become superconducting above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen ...
, triggering a stampede of scientific interest exemplified by the 1987 "
Woodstock of physics The term "Woodstock of physics" is often used by physicists to refer to the marathon session of the American Physical Society’s meeting on March 18, 1987, which featured 51 presentations of recent discoveries in the science of high-temperature sup ...
", at which Müller was a featured presenter.
In 1987 Müller and Bednorz were jointly awarded the
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
in physics—the shortest time between the discovery and the prize award for any scientific Nobel.
Other honors
*Honorary degree,
University of Pavia
The University of Pavia ( it, Università degli Studi di Pavia, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; la, Alma Ticinensis Universitas) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one ...
, 1987.
*Honorary degree, dr. techn.,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
*Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
*Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including the ...
, 1992.
See also
*
Timeline of low-temperature technology
The following is a timeline of low-temperature technology and cryogenic technology (refrigeration down to –273.15 °C, –459.67 °F or 0 K). It also lists important milestones in thermometry, thermodynamics, statistical physics and ca ...
References
* including the Nobel Lecture, 8 December 1987 ''Perovskite-Type Oxides – The New Approach to High-Tc Superconductivity''
Online Encyclopædia Britannica biographical article.* K. Alex Mueller and Tom W. Kool: ''“Properties of Perovskites and Other Oxides.”'' World Scientific, 2010.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, K. Alex
1927 births
2023 deaths
Nobel laureates in Physics
Swiss Nobel laureates
ETH Zurich alumni
Academic staff of the University of Zurich
People associated with the University of Zurich
Swiss physicists
Swiss Protestants
Swiss people of Jewish descent
IBM Fellows
Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences