Personnel announcements

The Institute has lost a highly acclaimed scientist and esteemed colleague whose groundbreaking research has significantly advanced the field of superconductivity. Among other achievements, Dr. Mikhail Eremets discovered superconductivity at near-room temperature in hydrogen-rich materials.

Since 2001, Mikhail Eremets had led the High-Pressure Chemistry and Physics research group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. He passed away on Saturday, November 16, 2024, at the age of 75, after a prolonged illness. Born on January 3, 1949, in the Pinsk region of Belarus, he studied physics in Moscow and conducted research in France, the UK, Japan, and the USA before joining the institute in Mainz in 2001.

“Mikhail’s passing is a profound loss for our Institute, as we bid farewell to a very pleasant and open-minded person and a world-leading researcher with a deep passion for science”, says Ulrich Pöschl, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry.

Mikhail Eremets and his group achieved several groundbreaking advances and breakthrough discoveries in high-pressure and superconductivity research, including the discovery of new phases and properties of elemental hydrogen, nitrogen, sodium, and other substances.

Records in Superconductivity Research

Most notably, Mikhail and his collaborators achieved a quantum leap and a new record in the field of high-temperature superconductivity: They discovered conventional superconductivity in hydrides, and they reached record-high critical temperature of more than 200 K sulfur hydride and more than 250 K in lanthanum hydride hydride. These and other outstanding scientific achievements generated great excitement in the global scientific community, and Mikhail received numerous prestigious international honors and awards, including the Bragg Lecture 2023, Matthias Prize 2022, McGroddy Prize 2020, and the Falling Wall Breakthrough Award in Physical Sciences 2020. Only last year, he held the Bragg Lecture 2023, a very prestigious lecture by University College London. In 2015, he was named one of the world's most important researchers in the Nature magazine ranking, and in 2016 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMExoSVKhLE; https://www.mpic.de/3599109/Grants).

His findings triggered a wave of follow-up studies that confirmed and extended the results.

Over many years, Mikhail Eremets has designed and conducted sophisticated experiments in which he investigated both pure hydrogen and various types of hydrogen-rich compounds. Together with his team, he developed advanced apparatus, so-called diamond anvil cells, which make it possible to subject materials such as hydrogen sulfide to pressures of more than one million bar.

Other experimental highlights of his career included the conversion of molecular nitrogen into a polymer at high pressure. The material is as hard as diamond and has an extremely high energy density. In 2009, Mikhail Eremets and his colleagues demonstrated that sodium becomes transparent under extreme pressure. In the same year, he was able to demonstrate the superconductivity of silanes at high pressure, hydrogen-rich materials providing insights into the behavior of hydrogen.
In 2011, he succeeded in proving that elementary hydrogen becomes a metal under very high pressure.

“Mikhail will be remembered and missed at the MPIC. At the same time, we can be grateful to have known and enjoyed the company of such an inspiring person and outstanding researcher with an enormous scientific impact and legacy”, states Ulrich Pöschl. “Our heartfelt condolences go to the colleagues, friends, and family of Mikhail.”

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Wissenschaftlicher Ansprechpartner:
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Pöschl
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry
Telephone: +4961313057001
E-Mail: poschl-office@mpic.de

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Weitere Informationen:
https://www.mpic.de/5619671/nachruf-mikhail-eremets