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They shrank the hard disk

— Photos: AFP

Albert Fert and Peter Gruenberg.

STOCKHOLM: France’s Albert Fert and Germany’s Peter Gruenberg won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for a discovery that has shrunk the size of hard disks found in computers, iPods and other digital devices.

The duo discovered a totally new physical effect that has let the computer industry develop sensitive reading tools for information stored on computer hard drives from the tiniest laptops to feature-rich portable music and video players.

“The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery,” Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. “You would not have an iPod without this effect.”

In its citation, the academy said the discovery can also be considered “one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology,” the science dedicated to building materials from the molecular level.

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

Phil Schewe, a physicist with the American Institute of Physics, said the prize honoured “a terrific combination of great physics and huge practical application.” He added: “I can hardly think of an application that has a bigger bang than the magnetic hard drive industry. Every one of us probably owns three or four or five devices, probably more, that depend on billions of bits of information stored on something the size of a dime.”

Professor Fert, 69, is the scientific director of the Mixed Unit for Physics at CNRS/Thales, while Professor Gruenberg, 68, is with the Institute of Solid State Research in Germany. — AP

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