John Robert Schrieffer
Schrieffer, John Robert (1931-) is an American physicist. He won the 1972 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on superconductivity, the ability of some substances to conduct electricity without resistance at extremely low temperatures. Schrieffer shared the prize with American physicists John Bardeen and Leon Neil Cooper. Together, the three men developed a theory of the superconductivity of metals that became known as the BCS theory, using the initials of their last names.
Schrieffer was born on May 31, 1931, in Oak Park, Illinois. He received a B.S. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953. He then went to the University of Illinois, where he earned an M.S. degree in 1954 and a Ph.D. degree in 1957.
Schrieffer began his work with Bardeen and Cooper at the University of Illinois. In 1957, they developed the BCS theory. According to their theory, a superconductor has no electrical resistance because of an attractive interaction between its electrons that results in the formation of pairs of electrons. These electron pairs are bound to one another and flow without resistance around impurities and other imperfections. In an ordinary conductor, resistance occurs because its unbound electrons collide with imperfections and then scatter.
From 1957 to 1960, Schrieffer was an assistant professor at the University of Chicago. He returned to the University of Illinois as an associate professor from 1960 to 1962.
Schrieffer was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 1962 to 1979. In 1964, he published the book Theory of Superconductivity. In 1980, Schrieffer was appointed professor of physics at the University of California in Santa Barbara and chancellor professor in 1984. In 1992, he became a professor at Florida State University.