Bednorz, Johannes Georg (1950-…), a German physicist, became known for his work on superconductivity (the ability of certain metals, alloys, and ceramics to conduct electric current without resistance when they are cooled below a certain temperature). In this state, the materials are said to be superconductors. In 1983, Bednorz began to search for higher-temperature superconductors in collaboration with K. Alex Muller of Switzerland. The two men shared the 1987 Nobel Prize for physics for their important breakthrough in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials. It was the second consecutive year that scientists from the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory at Ruschlikon, Switzerland, had won the prize.
In January 1986, Bednorz and Muller announced their discovery of superconductivity in a ceramic material at a temperature of 33 degrees Celsius above absolute zero. It was an important find because the earlier, metal conductors worked at such low temperatures that their use was extremely limited. Muller and Bednorz discovered that a group of materials called perovskites could superconduct at relatively high temperatures, around 90 degrees Celsius above absolute zero, a temperature high enough to allow liquid nitrogen to be used as the cooling agent. Metals and alloys must be cooled to superconducting temperatures with liquid helium, which is far costlier and more difficult to handle than liquid nitrogen.
Although the temperatures achieved by Mueller and Bednorz are still too cold for most practical applications, superconductors are already used as electromagnets for particle accelerators and in experimental high-speed computers.
Bednorz was born on May 16, 1950, in Neuenkirchen, West Germany (now part of Germany). He received his master’s degree from the University of Munster in 1976 and his doctorate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1982. As a student, he had worked briefly with Muller at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory. He joined the laboratory in 1982 and was appointed an IBM Fellow five years later.
