Before a series of breakthroughs in the mid-1980s, most scientists believed that the extremely low temperature requirements of superconductors rendered them impractical for everyday use. However, in June 1986, K. Alex Muller and Georg Bednorz working in IBM Zurich broke the record of critical temperature superconductivity in lanthanum barium copper oxide (LBCO) to 35 K above absolute zero, which had remained unbroken at 23 K for 17 years. Their discovery stimulated a great deal of additional research in high-temperature superconductivity.