Albert Fert – Peter Gruenberg
France’s Albert Fert and Germany’s Peter Gruenberg have won the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics for a breakthrough in nanotechnology that revolutionized data storage and led to gadgets such as laptops and iPods.
“It is thanks to this technology that it has been possible to miniaturize hard disks so radically in recent years,” the academy said.
Surrounded by journalists in Paris soon after learning of his award, the 69-year-old Fert started chatting with some youngsters near the CNRS research centre he co-founded.
“You like physics?” he asked, telling them he had just won the Nobel prize. “If you are able to listen to music on your MP3 player, it is a bit thanks to what I’ve done.”
That’s probably enough to get them sued by the RIAA.
Not being a physicist, I still wonder if this achievement was significant enough to merit a Nobel ? Not that I don’t truly appreciate the bigger volume and cheaper h/d’s and mp3 players mentioned.
Here’s a list of other GMR applications, besides MRAM which could soon replace FlashRam and DRAM —
http://www.personal.psu.edu/sbk142/gmr_app.htm
They deserve the prize, what a breakthrough for storage / sensors. Thanks for posting, Eideard.