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Swiss physicist K. Alex Müller won the 1987 Nobel Prize in physics. Müller discovered that certain materials can become superconductive (able to conduct an electrical current without resistance) at much higher temperatures than once thought possible.

Karl Alex Müller, born in 1927, Swiss physicist and cowinner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery that copper oxide ceramic materials can achieve superconductivity (the ability of a material to carry an electrical current indefinitely without resistance) at temperatures well above the extremely low temperatures once associated with this remarkable property. Müller shared the prize with his colleague, German physicist Georg Johannes Bednorz.

Müller was born in Switzerland. He attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, receiving his Ph.D. degree in physics there in 1958. He worked at the Battelle Institute in Geneva for several years and then in 1963 joined the International Business Machines (IBM) Research Laboratory near Zürich, Switzerland, where he spent most of his career. Müller was also on the faculty of the University of Zürich.

Superconductivity had been discovered in 1911. However, practical applications could not be developed because to achieve superconductivity materials had to be cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero (0 K, -273° C, -459° F). In the 1970s compounds containing the element niobium were found to be superconducting at 23 K (-250° C, -418° F), which theoretical physicists believed to be the upper temperature limit for superconductors. By systematically testing oxides containing nickel or copper, in 1986 Bednorz and Müller found a material, barium lanthanum copper oxide, that starts to become superconducting at temperatures higher than 100 K (-173° C, -279° F). This temperature is easier and cheaper to maintain, making it possible for researchers to design superconducting devices. Superconductors are now used in scientific and medical instruments and may find applications in the electronics industry and in electric power transmission and storage.