Bednorz

The ceramic mix of Dr. Müller and Bednorz — lanthanum barium copper oxide — was a superconductor at slightly higher temperatures, around minus-400 degrees.

In Nobel terms, the 1987 physics prize to Dr. Müller and fellow IBM researcher J. Georg Bednorz was a rare fast-track decision.

The Nobel Committee in 1987 lauded Dr. Müller and Bednorz for their “audacity to concentrate on new paths” and said that it merited “one of the most immediate decisions in the history of the award.”

Dr. Müller said it took only two hours to persuade Bednorz to join him in experimenting with ceramics in 1983.

To work with him, he recruited J. Georg Bednorz, whom he had advised on his Ph.D. work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.