Johannes Georg Bednorz
active c. 1950, Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
German experimental physicist who, as a young IBM researcher with K. Alex Müller, discovered high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic oxides.
Fresh from his doctorate on perovskite crystals at Münster and ETH Zurich, Bednorz joined IBM Zurich in 1982. He ran the laborious crystal-growth and measurement program that in January 1986 showed superconductivity in La-Ba-Cu-O — a result he and Müller reported with deliberate caution. Awarded the Nobel Prize at thirty-seven, he was at the time the youngest physics laureate since the 1960s and has continued work on oxide materials at IBM.
Nobel-winning work
Bednorz shared the 1987 Nobel Prize for the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics. He personally carried out the materials search: growing and characterizing mixed-phase barium-lanthanum-copper oxide samples, then measuring the resistive transition that dropped to zero near 35 K.
Confirmation came through the onset of the Meissner effect in late 1986, proving true bulk superconductivity rather than a filamentary artifact. The La-Ba-Cu-O discovery, since extended to YBCO, bismuthates and iron-based compounds, remains the fastest Nobel recognition in the history of physics.
Workplaces: IBM Zurich Research Laboratory
Germany