Nanotechnology Experts Awarded a Nobel Prize Tiny Devices Store Vast Amounts of Data

Albert Fert of France and Peter Grnberg of Germany were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for a discovery that lets billions of computer users store reams of data on computer hard drives. The technology “can also be considered one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology,” which deals with extremely small devices, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its citation.

“Applications of this phenomenon have revolutionized techniques for retrieving data from hard disks,” the citation said. “The discovery also plays a major role in various magnetic sensors as well as for the development of a new generation of electronics.”

In 1988 Fert and Grnberg independently discovered a physical effect called giant magnetoresistance. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads. “The development of computers showed in the last years that this was an important contribution,” Grnberg told the Swedish channel TV4 after being told of the award.

Last year, the Americans John Mather and George Smoot were awarded the Nobel in physics for their work examining the infancy of the universe, studies that have aided the understanding of galaxies and stars and increasing support for the Big Bang theory of the universe.

On Monday, Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, of the United States, and Martin Evans, of Britain, were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for groundbreaking stem cell research on mice that helped establish the role of individual genes in such human ailments as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Nobel Prizes for chemistry, literature and peace, along with the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, will be announced through Oct. 15.

The peace award is announced in Oslo, while the other prizes are announced in Stockholm. The prizes, each of which carries a cash prize of 10 million kronor, or $1.5 million, were established in the will of the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel. The prizes are always presented to the winners on the Dec. 10 anniversary of the death of its creator.

Fert, born in 1938 in Carcassonne, France, is a professor at the Universit Paris-Sud and scientific director of Unit Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thals. Grnberg, born in 1939 in Pilsen in what is now the Czech Republic, is a professor in Jlich, Germany.

Originally published by AP, Bloomberg.

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