Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike (1853–1926)

Dutch physicist who worked mainly in the field of low-temperature physics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1913 for his discovery in 1911 of the phenomenon of superconductivity (enhanced electrical conductivity at very low temperatures).

Kamerlingh Onnes was born in Groningen and studied there and at Heidelberg. He was professor of experimental physics at the University of Leiden 1882–1924, and in 1894 he founded the cryogenic laboratories at Leiden, which became a world centre of low-temperature physics.

He applied the cascade method for cooling gases that had been developed by Scottish scientist James Dewar, and in 1908 succeeded in liquefying helium. In 1910, Kamerlingh Onnes managed to lower the temperature of liquid helium to 0.8 K (−272.4°C/−458.2°F). Lord Kelvin had postulated in 1902 that as the temperature approached absolute zero, electrical resistance would increase. In 1911, Kamerlingh Onnes found the reverse to be the case. He called this phenomenon supraconductivity, later renamed superconductivity.

Kamerlingh Onnes made a particular study of the effects of low temperature on the conductivity of mercury, lead, nickel, and manganese–iron alloys. He found that the imposition of a magnetic field eliminated superconductivity even at low temperatures.