Myriam Sarachik: A Pioneer of Quantum Magnetism and Resilience
Myriam Sarachik (1933–2021) was a titan of condensed matter physics whose career was defined by both profound scientific discovery and extraordinary personal resilience. A refugee who fled the Holocaust and later overcame a devastating personal tragedy, Sarachik became a central figure in 20th-century physics, providing the experimental foundations for some of the most complex phenomena in materials science.
1. Biography: A Life of Displacement and Discovery
Born Myriam Paula Morgenstein on August 8, 1933, in Antwerp, Belgium, her early life was dictated by the upheaval of World War II. Her Jewish family fled the Nazi invasion in 1940, traveling through France and Spain before spending five and a half years in Havana, Cuba. In 1947, the family immigrated to New York City.
Education and Early Career:
- High School: She attended the Bronx High School of Science.
- Undergraduate: She earned her B.A. from Barnard College in 1954.
- Graduate: She completed her Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1960 under the supervision of Richard Garwin.
- Post-Doctoral Work: After a brief stint at IBM, she joined the technical staff at Bell Laboratories (1962–1964), then the world’s premier center for solid-state physics.
In 1964, Sarachik joined the faculty of the City College of New York (CCNY). She was the first woman to be appointed to a tenure-track position in the physics department, where she remained for the rest of her career, eventually becoming a Distinguished Professor.
2. Major Contributions: From the Kondo Effect to Quantum Tunneling
Sarachik was an experimentalist with an uncanny ability to find clarity in the "messy" physics of real-world materials. Her work focused on how electrons behave at extremely low temperatures.
The Experimental Proof of the Kondo Effect
In the early 1960s, physicists were puzzled by a phenomenon where the electrical resistance of certain metals reached a minimum as they were cooled, only to increase as temperatures dropped further—defying the standard logic that colder materials conduct better. In 1964, Sarachik published meticulous measurements of the resistivity of alloys. Her data provided the definitive experimental proof for the theoretical model proposed by Jun Kondo. This "Kondo Effect" explained how magnetic impurities interact with the sea of electrons in a metal, a cornerstone of many-body physics.
Metal-Insulator Transitions (MIT)
Sarachik spent decades investigating how materials transition from being conductors (metals) to insulators. By varying parameters like doping levels and magnetic fields, she explored the "Mott transition" and the "Anderson transition," helping to map the boundaries of electronic behavior in disordered systems.
Molecular Magnets and Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling
In the 1990s, Sarachik achieved what many consider her most significant breakthrough. Working with "molecular magnets" (specifically a molecule known as Mn12-acetate), she discovered resonant tunneling of magnetization. She showed that a macroscopic object (a crystal of molecules) could flip its magnetic orientation through quantum tunneling rather than by climbing over a thermal energy barrier. This discovery bridged the gap between classical and quantum magnetism and has profound implications for quantum computing.
3. Notable Publications
Sarachik authored or co-authored over 200 papers. Her most influential works include:
- "Resistivity of Mo-Nb and Mo-Re Alloys Containing 1% Fe" (1964, Physical Review): The seminal paper that confirmed the Kondo Effect.
- "Steps in the Hysteresis Loops of a Three-Dimensional Crystal of Molecular Clusters" (1996, Physical Review Letters): Co-authored with Jonathan Friedman, this paper announced the discovery of quantum tunneling in molecular magnets.
- "Metal-insulator transition in a two-dimensional electron system" (2001, Reviews of Modern Physics): A comprehensive review of the physics of 2D systems, reflecting her leadership in the field.
4. Awards & Recognition
Despite facing significant gender bias early in her career, Sarachik eventually received the highest honors in physics:
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences (1994): One of the highest honors for a U.S. scientist.
- Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize (2005): Awarded by the American Physical Society (APS) for her work on the Kondo effect and molecular magnets.
- L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science (2005): Recognizing her as a global leader in her field.
- President of the American Physical Society (2003): She was the third woman to lead the organization.
- APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement in Research (2020): Often called the "lifetime achievement award" of the APS.
5. Impact & Legacy
Sarachik’s legacy is twofold: scientific and humanitarian.
Scientific Impact: Her work on molecular magnets opened a new subfield of physics that is now central to the development of spintronics and quantum information science. Researchers continue to use her methodologies to study how quantum states can be manipulated in complex molecules.
Humanitarian and Advocacy: As a refugee, Sarachik was deeply committed to human rights. She served as the chair of the APS Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists (CIFS), where she fought for the rights of persecuted scientists in the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere. She was also a tireless advocate for women in STEM, mentoring generations of physicists at CCNY.
6. Collaborations
Sarachik was known for her collaborative spirit, often working across the theoretical-experimental divide.
- Bernd Matthias: A legendary figure at Bell Labs with whom she worked on superconductivity and magnetism.
- Jonathan Friedman: Her former student and collaborator on the groundbreaking 1996 Mn12-acetate paper.
- The CCNY "Low-Temp" Group: She built a world-class low-temperature laboratory at a public university, proving that elite science could be done outside the Ivy League.
7. Lesser-Known Facts
- The Decade of Silence: In 1970, Sarachik’s five-year-old daughter, Bonnie, was kidnapped and murdered. The tragedy shattered her life, and she effectively stopped publishing research for nearly ten years. Her return to the forefront of physics in the 1980s is regarded as one of the most remarkable "second acts" in scientific history.
- The "Matthias Rule": While at Bell Labs, she worked under Bernd Matthias, who famously had a set of "rules" for finding superconductors. Sarachik’s rigorous data often challenged these rules, earning her Matthias's deep respect.
- Public Education Advocate: Sarachik was a fierce defender of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, believing that high-level research should be accessible to students from all socioeconomic backgrounds.