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{{Short description|German physicist (born 1950)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Johannes Georg Bednorz
| image             = 8th Silesian Science Festival, Johannes Georg Bednorz, KsP 709, 09.12.2024.jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = Bednorz in 2013
| birth_name        = Johannes Georg Bednorz
| birth_date        = {{birth date and age|1950|5|16|df=y}}
| birth_place       = [[Neuenkirchen, Westphalia|Neuenkirchen]], [[North Rhine-Westphalia]], [[West Germany]]
| nationality       = [[Germany|German]]
| field             = [[Physics]]
| doctoral_advisor  = Heini Gränicher,<br />[[K. Alex Müller]]
| thesis_title      = Isovalent and heterovalent ionic substitution in SrTiO<sub>3</sub>
| thesis_url        = https://worldcat.org/en/title/838629819
| thesis_year       = 1982
| known_for         = [[High-temperature superconductivity]]
| prizes            = [[Marcel Benoist Prize]] {{small|(1986)}}<br>[[Fritz London Memorial Prize]] {{small|(1987)}}<br>[[Nobel Prize in Physics]] {{small|(1987)}}<br>[[EPS Europhysics Prize]] {{small|(1988)}}
}}
'''Johannes Georg Bednorz''' ({{IPA|de|ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈbɛdnɔʁt͡s|-|De-Georg Bednorz.ogg}}; born 16 May 1950) is a German [[physicist]] who, together with [[K. Alex Müller]], discovered [[high-temperature superconductivity]] in [[ceramic]]s, for which they shared the 1987 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]].

==Life and work==
Bednorz was born in [[Neuenkirchen, Westphalia|Neuenkirchen]], [[North Rhine-Westphalia]], [[Germany]] to elementary-school teacher Anton and piano teacher Elisabeth Bednorz, as the youngest of four children. His parents were both from [[Silesia]] in Central Europe, but [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944-1950)|were forced to move westwards in turbulences of World War II]].<ref name="nobelbio">{{Nobelprize|accessdate=20 April 2020}} including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1987 ''Perovskite-Type Oxides – The New Approach to High-Tc Superconductivity''</ref>

As a child, his parents tried to get him interested in classical music, but he was more practically inclined, preferring to work on motorcycles and cars. (Although as a teenager he did eventually learn to play the violin and trumpet.) In high school he developed an interest in the natural sciences, focusing on [[chemistry]], which he could learn in a hands-on manner through experiments.<ref name="nobelbio"/>

In 1968, Bednorz enrolled at the [[University of Münster]] to study chemistry. However, he soon felt lost in the large body of students, and opt to switch to the much less popular subject of [[crystallography]], a subfield of [[mineralogy]] at the interface of chemistry and physics. In 1972, his teachers Wolfgang Hoffmann and Horst Böhm arranged for him to spend the summer at the [[IBM Zurich Research Laboratory]] as a visiting student. The experience here would shape his further career: not only did he meet his later collaborator [[K. Alex Müller]], the head of the physics department, but he also experienced the atmosphere of creativity and freedom cultivated at the IBM lab, which he credits as a strong influence on his way of conducting science.<ref name="nobelbio"/><ref name="MagLabBio">{{cite web|url=http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/pioneers/bednorz.html |title=Georg Bednorz (1950–Present) |work=Pioneers in Electricity and Magnetism |publisher=Magnet Lab |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080109090719/http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/pioneers/bednorz.html |archive-date=January 9, 2008 }}</ref>

After another visit in 1973, he came to Zurich in 1974 for six months to do the experimental part of his diploma work. Here he grew crystals of SrTiO<sub>3</sub>, a ceramic material belonging to the family of [[perovskites]]. Müller, himself interested in perovskites, urged him to continue his research, and after obtaining his master's degree from Münster in 1977 Bednorz started a PhD at the [[ETH Zurich]] (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) under supervision of Heini Gränicher and Alex Müller. In 1978, his future wife, Mechthild Wennemer, whom he had met in Münster, followed him to Zürich to start her own PhD.<ref name="nobelbio"/><ref name="MagLabBio"/>

In 1982, after obtaining his PhD, he joined the IBM lab. There, he joined Müller's ongoing research on [[superconductivity]].<ref>{{cite journal| author = J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Müller| title = Possible high T<sub>c</sub> superconductivity in the Ba−La−Cu−O system| journal = Z. Phys. B| volume = 64| year = 1986| pages = 189–193| doi = 10.1007/BF01303701| issue = 1|bibcode = 1986ZPhyB..64..189B | s2cid = 118314311}}</ref> In 1983, Bednorz and Müller began a systematic study of the electrical properties of ceramics formed from [[transition metal oxide]]s, and in 1986 they succeeded in inducing superconductivity in a [[lanthanum barium copper oxide]] (LaBaCuO, also known as LBCO). The oxide's [[critical point (thermodynamics)|critical temperature]] (T<sub>c</sub>) was 35 K, a full 12 K higher than the previous record. This discovery stimulated a great deal of additional research in [[high-temperature superconductivity]] on cuprate materials with structures similar to LBCO, soon leading to the discovery of compounds such as [[BSCCO]] (T<sub>c</sub> 107K) and [[YBCO]] (T<sub>c</sub> 92K).

In 1987, Bednorz and Müller were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials".<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1987/index.html The Nobel Prize in Physics 1987]. nobelprize.org</ref> In the same year Bednorz was appointed an [[IBM Fellow]].

==Awards and honors==
*[[Fritz London#Fritz London Memorial Lectures and Prize|Thirteenth Fritz London Memorial Award]] (1987)
*[[Dannie Heineman Prize (Göttingen)|Dannie Heineman Prize]] of the [[Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities|Göttingen Academy]] (1987)<ref name="nobelbio"/>
*Robert Wichard Pohl Prize (1987)<ref name="nobelbio"/>
*Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize (1988)<ref name="nobelbio"/>
*[[Marcel Benoist Prize]] (1986)
*[[Nobel Prize for Physics]] (1987)
*[[James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials]] (1988)
*Minnie Rosen Award (1988)<ref name="nobelbio"/>
*Viktor Mortiz Goldschmidt Prize<ref name="nobelbio"/>
*[[Klung Wilhelmy Science Award|Otto Klung Prize]] (1987)
*[[National Academy of Sciences]] foreign associate (2018)
*Honorable member of the [[Swiss Physical Society]] since 2011

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
{{Commons category|Georg Bednorz}}
* [https://nationalmaglab.org/education/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/pioneers/j-georg-bednorz Pioneers in Electricity and Magnetism – Johannes Georg Bednorz], National High Magnetic Field Laboratory.
* {{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1987 ''Perovskite-Type Oxides – The New Approach to High-Tc Superconductivity''
{{Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates 1976-2000}}
{{1987 Nobel Prize winners}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bednorz, Johannes Georg}}
[[Category:1950 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:People from Steinfurt (district)]]
[[Category:German experimental physicists]]
[[Category:20th-century German physicists]]
[[Category:IBM employees]]
[[Category:IBM Fellows]]
[[Category:ETH Zurich alumni]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physics]]
[[Category:German Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:21st-century German physicists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society]]