He completed his Ph.D. in physics in 1943 at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich and continued his research there for four more years. He immigrated to the United Stated in 1947. Matthias was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965 and is most noted for his discovery of nearly 1,000 superconducting materials.
Superconductivity is a phenomenon that occurs in metals at very low temperatures.
When a metal is superconductive, it loses all electrical resistance. This means that electric currents can flow through a ring of superconducting material indefinitely, without losing any energy, as long as the material is kept at the very low temperature at which it becomes superconducting. Matthias's career focused on the search for materials with ever-higher transition temperatures. In 1947, Matthias accepted an appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The following year he began an affiliation with the Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey.