Magnet Academy: Karl Alexander Muller

In their search for new superconductors, Swiss theoretical physicist Karl Alexander Muller and his young colleague, J. Georg Bednorz, abandoned the metal alloys typically used in superconductivity research in favor of a class of oxides known as perovskites. This resulted in an important breakthrough in 1986 - superconductivity at a higher temperature than ever achieved before. When they announced their discovery, it caused such a stir in the scientific community that soon laboratories around the globe were experimenting with ceramic perovskites in hopes of attaining even higher superconducting temperatures.