K. Alexander Müller

Born on 20 April 1927 in Basel, Switzerland, Karl Alexander Müller is a Nobel-winning physicist who codiscovered high-temperature superconductors called cuprates. After earning his PhD at ETH Zürich in 1958, Müller worked at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Geneva before joining the IBM Zürich Research Laboratory in 1963, where he would remain until he retired. In 1970 he also attained the title of professor at the University of Zürich. From 1972 to 1985 Müller served as head of the physics division at the IBM lab. He specialized in ceramic compounds known as oxides. In 1983 he recruited J. Georg Bednorz to help develop a class of oxides called perovskites that would become superconductive at record high temperatures. Their breakthrough discovery in 1986 of a compound of copper, oxygen, barium, and lanthanum that lost its electrical resistance at 35 K set off a frantic search in other labs for similar superconductors with even higher transition temperatures. The next year the two were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Müller continued to research superconductivity at IBM until he retired in 1992. (Photo credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)

Date in History: 20 April 1927