Twenty-five years ago IBM scientists, J. Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Müller altered the landscape of physics when they observed superconductivity in an oxide material at a temperature 50 percent higher, (-238 deg C, -397 deg F) than what was previously known. This discovery opened an entirely new chapter in the field of physics and earned them the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1987.
Their now seminal paper titled, “Possible High Tc Superconductivity in the Ba – La – Cu – O System”1 was received by the peer-reviewed journal Zeitschrift für Physik B on 17 April 1986.
This remarkable discovery, of an unlikely new class of materials that were previously abandoned, created a frenzy of activity by physicists who envisioned exciting new applications in measurement technology, electrotechnology and microelectronics.
“This discovery is quite recent – less than two years old – but it has already stimulated research and development throughout the world to an unprecedented extent,” Taken from the speech of Professor Gösta Ekspong of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at the Nobel Prize award ceremony on 10 December 1987.
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Source: amsc, April 18, 2011