France''s Fert, Germany''s Gruenberg win Physics Nobel for iPod technologynews
09 October 2007
Mumbai: Albert Fert of France and Peter Gruenberg of Germany have won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics for their work in developing the technology that has led to miniaturised hard disks for computers and music players that led to the iPod revolution.The two were honoured for their independent discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) technology in 1988 and their joint work to develop it.

``It is thanks to this technology that it has been possible to miniaturised hard disks so radically in recent years,'''' the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation said in a statement on its website.

The two will share a prize of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.5 million).

The GMR technology involves very weak changes in magnetic force that enables computers to read vast amounts of information from smaller surfaces. First introduced in 1997, the technology has become standard hard drive outfit for personal computers and initial models of Apple''s iPod music players.

Fert, born in 1938 in Carcassonne, France, is a professor at the Universite Paris-Sud in Orsay and the scientific director of Unite Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales. He received his Ph.D. in 1970 from Paris Sud and has been working on condensed-matter physics since 1995.

One of his 270 publications is among the top 10 most read Physical Review Letters since its inception in 1953, according to the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

Gruenberg, born a year after in Pilsen in Czechoslovakia (the Czech Republic), is a professor with the Institut fuer Festkoerperforschung in Juelich, Germany. Gruenberg received his Ph.D. from the Technische Universitaet Darmstadt in 1969.

Fert''s and Gruenberg''s technology has dramatically increased the storage density of hard drives, making it possible, for example, to watch a movie on an iPod. The novelty of the technique is that it uses the spin of an electron, rather than its charge, as a variable, which has launched a new field of physics, known as spin electronics.

Giant magnetoresistance is considered to be the first application of nanotechnology, which involves making devices on a molecular level, the Nobel foundation said.

Last year''s Nobel in physics went to Americans George Smoot, a California professor, and John Mather, a government scientist, for their work in astrophysics to explore the origins of the universe. Their work effectively silenced critics who said the Big Bang theory lacked any physical proof.

Yesterday, US scientists Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and the UK''s Martin Evans won the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on embryonic stem-cell research. The Nobel Prize in chemistry will be announced tomorrow, with the prize for literature following the day after. The Nobel Peace Prize is scheduled to be unveiled on October 12.
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France''s Fert, Germany''s Gruenberg win Physics Nobel for iPod technology