Georg Bednorz facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Johannes Georg Bednorz
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Bednorz in 2013
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Johannes Georg Bednorz
16 May 1950 Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany
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| Nationality | German |
| Known for | High-temperature superconductivity |
| Awards | Marcel Benoist Prize (1986) Fritz London Memorial Prize (1987) Nobel Prize in Physics (1987) EPS Europhysics Prize (1988) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Thesis | Isovalent and heterovalent ionic substitution in SrTiO3 (1982) |
| Doctoral advisor | Heini Gränicher, K. Alex Müller |
Johannes Georg Bednorz (German pronunciation: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈbɛdnɔʁt͡s]; born May 16, 1950) is a German physicist. He is famous for discovering high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic materials. He shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics with his colleague, K. Alex Müller, for this important breakthrough.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Johannes Georg Bednorz was born in Neuenkirchen, a town in Germany. He was the youngest of four children. His father, Anton, was an elementary school teacher. His mother, Elisabeth, taught piano. His parents had moved from Silesia in Central Europe due to World War II.
As a child, Johannes was very practical. He loved working on motorcycles and cars. Even though his parents wanted him to enjoy classical music, he preferred hands-on activities. Later, as a teenager, he did learn to play the violin and trumpet.
In high school, he became very interested in natural sciences. He especially liked chemistry because he could do many experiments. This allowed him to learn in a practical way.
University Studies
In 1968, Bednorz started studying chemistry at the University of Münster. However, he soon felt that the classes were too big. He decided to switch to a less crowded subject: crystallography. This field combines parts of chemistry and physics. It focuses on how crystals are formed and structured.
In 1972, his teachers helped him get a summer job. He became a visiting student at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory in Switzerland. This experience was very important for his future. He met K. Alex Müller, who was the head of the physics department. Müller would later become his research partner. Bednorz also loved the creative and free atmosphere at the IBM lab. He said it greatly influenced how he approached science.
Doctoral Research
After another visit in 1973, Bednorz returned to Zurich in 1974. He spent six months doing experiments for his diploma work. During this time, he grew crystals of a ceramic material called SrTiO3. This material belongs to a group known as perovskites.
K. Alex Müller was also interested in perovskites. He encouraged Bednorz to continue his research. After getting his master's degree from Münster in 1977, Bednorz began his PhD. He studied at the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). His supervisors were Heini Gränicher and Alex Müller. In 1978, his future wife, Mechthild Wennemer, joined him in Zürich. She had met him in Münster and came to start her own PhD.
Discovering High-Temperature Superconductivity
In 1982, after finishing his PhD, Bednorz started working at the IBM lab. He joined Müller's ongoing research into superconductivity. Superconductivity is a special state where certain materials can conduct electricity with zero resistance. This means electricity can flow through them perfectly, without losing any energy as heat. However, this usually happens only at extremely cold temperatures.
In 1983, Bednorz and Müller began to study ceramic materials. They focused on materials made from transition metal oxides. They wanted to see if these ceramics could become superconductors at higher temperatures.
The Breakthrough
In 1986, they made a huge discovery. They found that a ceramic material called lanthanum barium copper oxide (LaBaCuO) could become a superconductor. What was amazing was its critical temperature (Tc). This is the temperature below which a material becomes a superconductor. For their new material, the critical temperature was 35 Kelvin (K). This was 12 K higher than any previous record for superconductivity.
This discovery was a major breakthrough. It opened up a whole new area of research. Scientists around the world started looking for other materials with similar structures. Soon, they found even more compounds that could superconduct at even higher temperatures. Examples include BSCCO (with a Tc of 107 K) and YBCO (with a Tc of 92 K).
Winning the Nobel Prize
In 1987, Johannes Bednorz and K. Alex Müller were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. They received the prize "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials." In the same year, Bednorz was also named an IBM Fellow, a special honor given to top scientists at IBM.
Awards and Honors
- Marcel Benoist Prize (1986)
- Thirteenth Fritz London Memorial Award (1987)
- Dannie Heineman Prize of the Göttingen Academy (1987)
- Robert Wichard Pohl Prize (1987)
- Otto Klung Prize (1987)
- Nobel Prize for Physics (1987)
- Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize (1988)
- James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials (1988)
- Minnie Rosen Award (1988)
- Viktor Mortiz Goldschmidt Prize
- Honorable member of the Swiss Physical Society (since 2011)
- National Academy of Sciences foreign associate (2018)
See also
In Spanish: Johannes Georg Bednorz para niños
