Karl Alexander Müller was born inBasel, Switzerland, on 20 April 1927, to Irma (née Feigenbaum) and Paul Müller. His mother wasJewish.[2] His family immediately moved toSalzburg, Austria, where his father was studying music. Alex and his mother then moved toDornach, nearBasel, to the home of his grandparents. Then they moved toLugano, in theItalian-speaking part of Switzerland, where he learned to speak Italian fluently. His mother died when he was 11.
Müller was sent to school at the Evangelical College inSchiers, 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 theSwiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich). He took courses byWolfgang Pauli, who made a deep impression on him. After receiving hisDiplom, he worked for one year, then returned to ETH Zürich for a PhD, submitting his thesis at the end of 1957.
For his undergraduate diploma work, Müller studied under G. Busch. He worked on theHall Effect ingray tin, asemimetal.
Between hisundergraduate degree and beginning hisgraduate studies, he worked for one year in the Department of Industrial Research at ETH on theEidophor large-scale display system.
In the early 1980s, Müller began searching for substances that would become superconductive at higher temperatures. The highestcritical temperature (Tc) attainable at that time was about 23K. 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”.[6] In 1986 the two researchers succeeded in achieving superconductivity inlanthanum barium copper oxide (LBCO) at a temperature of 35K. Over the previous 75 years the critical temperature had risen from 11 K in 1911 to 23K 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 inhigh-temperature superconductivity, leading to the discovery of compounds such asBSCCO (Tc = 107 K) andYBCO (T'c = 92 K).
In 1987 Müller and Bednorz were jointly awarded theNobel Prize in physics—the shortest time between the discovery and the prize award for any scientific Nobel.
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