Robert Schrieffer The Nobel Prize in Physics 1972

Autobiography

While still in graduate school, John Robert Schrieffer developed with John Bardeen and Leon Cooper a theoretical explanation of superconductivity that garnered the trio the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972. The BCS theory (the acronym formed from the first letters of its creators’ surnames) applies specifically to low temperature superconductors. Schrieffer, however, has also been involved in research focusing on developing an equally successful theory of high temperature superconductivity. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1931, Schrieffer moved during his youth to Manhasset, New York, and again, about seven years later, to Eustis, Florida, where the family settled. Schrieffer graduated in 1949 from Eustis High School, then headed back north to major in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his third year at the school, however, Schrieffer changed his major to physics, earning a bachelor’s degree in the subject in 1953. He continued to study physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he became a research assistant in the laboratory of John Bardeen. Schrieffer’s initial focus as a research assistant was on surface physics. But in 1956 he began to investigate superconductivity with Bardeen and Cooper, who was also an assistant in Bardeen’s lab. After Cooper discovered that electrons in a superconducting material are attracted to one another and organize themselves into pairs (termed Cooper pairs), Schrieffer began seeking a mathematical description of their behavior. In early 1957 he developed the necessary equations, which considered the activity of all Cooper pairs simultaneously, rather than as individual pairs. Later that same year, the BCS theory was completed and announced. For his doctoral dissertation, Schrieffer gave an account of his theoretical work on superconductivity.

After receiving his Ph.D., Schrieffer traveled overseas on a year-long National Science Foundation fellowship. At the University of Birmingham in England and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, he extended his work with superconductors. He returned to the United States and began an assistant professorship at the University of Chicago. In 1959 he joined the faculty at the University of Illinois, and a few years later embarked on an academic career at the University of Pennsylvania. Schrieffer married Anne Grete Thomsen in 1960, with whom he would have three children. In 1964, his Theory of Superconductivity appeared in print, and in 1980 he accepted a post at the University of California, Santa Barbara. There he advanced steadily, from professor to chancellor professor to director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics.

In the early 1990s, Schrieffer moved to Tallahassee, Florida, where he was a university eminent scholar professor at Florida State University and a chief scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory before his retirement in 2006. His recent work has focused on magnetism in condensed matter and high temperature superconductivity.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Schrieffer has received many other honors. Among the most notable are the Oliver E. Buckley Solid State Physics Prize, the John Ericsson Award from the American Society of Swedish Engineers, the Comstock Prize of the National Academy of Science and the National Medal of Science. Schrieffer is also a member of several prominent scientific academies and organizations. He has served as the president of the American Physical Society and as chair of the Scientific Council of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste.

John Robert Schrieffer was born in Oak Park, Illinois on May 31, 1931, son of John H. Schrieffer and his wife Louis (n?e Anderson). In 1940, the family moved to Manhasset, New York and in 1947 to Eustis, Florida where they became active in the citrus industry. Following his graduation from Eustis High School in 1949, Schrieffer was admitted to Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where for two years he majored in electrical engineering, then changed to physics in his junior year. He completed a bachelor's thesis on the multiple structure in heavy atoms under the direction of Professor John C. Slater. Following up on an interest in solid state physics developed while at MIT, he began graduate studies at the University of Illinois, where he immediately began research with Professor John Bardeen. After working out a problem dealing with electrical conduction on semiconductor surfaces, Schrieffer spent a year in the laboratory, applying the theory to several surface problems. In the third year of graduate studies, he joined Bardeen and Cooper in developing the theory of superconductivity, which constituted his doctoral dissertation. He spent the academic year 1957-58 as a National Science Foundation fellow at the University of Birmingham and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, where he continued research in superconductivity. Following a year as assistant professor at the University of Chicago, he returned to the University of Illinois in 1959 as a faculty member. In 1960 he returned to the Bohr Institute for a summer visit, during which he became engaged to Anne Grete Thomsen whom he married at Christmas of that year.

In 1962 Schrieffer joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where in 1964 he was appointed Mary Amanda Wood Professor in Physics. In 1980 he was appointed Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and to the position of Chancellor Professor in 1984. He served as Director of the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara from 1984-89. In 1992 he was appointed University Professor at Florida State University and Chief Scientist of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. He holds honorary degrees from the Technische Hochschule, Munich and the Universities of Geneva, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Cincinnati, Tel-Aviv, Alabama. In 1969 he was appointed by Cornell to a six-year term as a Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences of which he is a member of their council, the American Philosophical Society, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. His awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, Oliver E.

Buckley Solid State Physics Prize, Comstock Prize, National Academy of Science, the Nobel Prize in Physics shared with John Bardeen and Leon N. Cooper in 1972, John Ericsson Medal, American Society of Swedish Engineers, University of Illinois Alumni Achievement Award, and in 1984 the National Medal of Science. The main thrust of his recent work has been in the area of high-temperature superconductivity, strongly correlated electrons, and the dynamics of electrons in strong magnetic fields. The Schrieffers have three children, Bolette, Paul, and Regina.

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