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Georg Bednorz

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13 views3 pages

Georg Bednorz

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perterhass321
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Georg Bednorz

Johannes Georg Bednorz (German pronunciation:


[ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈbɛdnɔʁt͡s] ; born 16 May 1950) is a German Johannes Georg Bednorz
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 born in Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-
Westphalia, Germany to elementary-school teacher
Anton and piano teacher Elisabeth Bednorz, as the
youngest of four children. His parents were both from
Bednorz in 2013
Silesia in Central Europe, but were forced to move
Born Johannes Georg Bednorz
westwards in turbulences of World War II.[1]
16 May 1950
As a child, his parents tried to get him interested in Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-
classical music, but he was more practically inclined, Westphalia, West Germany
preferring to work on motorcycles and cars. (Although Nationality German
as a teenager he did eventually learn to play the violin Known for High-temperature
and trumpet.) In high school he developed an interest superconductivity
in the natural sciences, focusing on chemistry, which
Awards Marcel Benoist Prize (1986)
he could learn in a hands-on manner through
Fritz London Memorial Prize
experiments.[1]
(1987)

In 1968, Bednorz enrolled at the University of Münster Nobel Prize in Physics (1987)
to study chemistry. However, he soon felt lost in the EPS Europhysics Prize (1988)
large body of students, and opt to switch to the much Scientific career
less popular subject of crystallography, a subfield of Fields
Physics
mineralogy at the interface of chemistry and physics.
Thesis Isovalent and heterovalent ionic
In 1972, his teachers Wolfgang Hoffmann and Horst
substitution in SrTiO3 (https://worl
Böhm arranged for him to spend the summer at the
dcat.org/en/title/83862981
IBM Zurich Research Laboratory as a visiting student.
9) (1982)
The experience here would shape his further career:
not only did he meet his later collaborator K. Alex Doctoral Heini Gränicher,
Müller, the head of the physics department, but he also advisor K. Alex Müller
experienced the atmosphere of creativity and freedom
cultivated at the IBM lab, which he credits as a strong influence on his way of conducting science.[1][2]
After another visit in 1973, he came to Zurich in 1974 for six months to do the experimental part of his
diploma work. Here he grew crystals of SrTiO3, a ceramic material belonging to the family of
perovskites. Müller, himself interested in perovskites, urged him to continue his research, and after
obtaining his master's degree from Münster in 1977 Bednorz started a PhD at the ETH Zurich (Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology) under supervision of Heini Gränicher and Alex Müller. In 1978, his
future wife, Mechthild Wennemer, whom he had met in Münster, followed him to Zürich to start her own
PhD.[1][2]

In 1982, after obtaining his PhD, he joined the IBM lab. There, he joined Müller's ongoing research on
superconductivity.[3] In 1983, Bednorz and Müller began a systematic study of the electrical properties of
ceramics formed from transition metal oxides, and in 1986 they succeeded in inducing superconductivity
in a lanthanum barium copper oxide (LaBaCuO, also known as LBCO). The oxide's critical temperature
(Tc) was 35 K, a full 12 K higher than the previous record. This discovery stimulated a great deal of
additional research in high-temperature superconductivity on cuprate materials with structures similar to
LBCO, soon leading to the discovery of compounds such as BSCCO (Tc 107K) and YBCO (Tc 92K).

In 1987, Bednorz and Müller were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their important break-
through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials".[4] In the same year Bednorz was
appointed an IBM Fellow.

Awards and honors


Thirteenth Fritz London Memorial Award (1987)
Dannie Heineman Prize of the Göttingen Academy (1987)[1]
Robert Wichard Pohl Prize (1987)[1]
Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize (1988)[1]
Marcel Benoist Prize (1986)
Nobel Prize for Physics (1987)
James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials (1988)
Minnie Rosen Award (1988)[1]
Viktor Mortiz Goldschmidt Prize[1]
Otto Klung Prize (1987)
National Academy of Sciences foreign associate (2018)
Honorable member of the Swiss Physical Society since 2011

References
1. Georg Bednorz (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/130) on Nobelprize.org , accessed 20
April 2020 including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1987 Perovskite-Type Oxides – The
New Approach to High-Tc Superconductivity
2. "Georg Bednorz (1950–Present)" (https://web.archive.org/web/20080109090719/http://www.
magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/pioneers/bednorz.html). Pioneers in Electricity and
Magnetism. Magnet Lab. Archived from the original (http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tu
torials/pioneers/bednorz.html) on January 9, 2008.
3. J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Müller (1986). "Possible high Tc superconductivity in the
Ba−La−Cu−O system". Z. Phys. B. 64 (1): 189–193. Bibcode:1986ZPhyB..64..189B (https://
ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986ZPhyB..64..189B). doi:10.1007/BF01303701 (https://doi.or
g/10.1007%2FBF01303701). S2CID 118314311 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:1
18314311).
4. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1987 (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1987/
index.html). nobelprize.org

External links
Pioneers in Electricity and Magnetism – Johannes Georg Bednorz (https://nationalmaglab.or
g/education/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/pioneers/j-georg-bednorz),
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
Georg Bednorz (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/130) on Nobelprize.org including the
Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1987 Perovskite-Type Oxides – The New Approach to High-Tc
Superconductivity

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georg_Bednorz&oldid=1248328523"

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