2007 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 9 October 2007.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Albert Fert was born in 1938 in Carcassonne, France, and is affiliated with Université Paris-Sud, Orsay and Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/THALES, Orsay. Peter Grünberg was born in 1939 in Plzen, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), and is affiliated with Forschungszentrum Jülich, Jülich.

Why it matters

The two physicists discovered independently in 1988 how tiny changes in magnetism could produce large changes in electrical resistance. The effect made possible the huge hard drives in computers and music players.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.