Lecture by the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics

Professor Albert Fert, who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for physics for his work on giant magneto-resistance and spintronics, will give a lecture at the University of Geneva on 16 November on this booming field of science.

On 9 October, the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics was jointly awarded to Albert Fert of the CNRS and Peter Grünberg of the Jülich Research Centre for their simultaneous and independent discovery of giant magneto-resistance (GMR) in 1988. This discovery had a significant impact in the fields of information technology and communications as it was rapidly used to develop extremely sensitive hard disk read-out heads that are capable of reading information stored at very high densities, thereby allowing further progress in the miniaturisation of data-storage devices. Since the first GMR read-out head was launched in 1997, the technology has become the standard in the micro-electronics industry. The GMR-based technology, which makes use of the way electric conduction is influenced by electron spin, has given rise to a new field of electronics, namely spin electronics or spintronics. Today, spintronics is a boom area of nanoscience. The spin transfer effects will have major applications such as magnetic memory devices and radiofrequency oscillators for telecommunications. Spintronics that associate magnetic materials with semiconductors or molecules also promise to generate attractive spin-offs. The lecture will provide an overview of the recent progress in this field of research and its technology potential.

For more information on the 2007 Nobel Prize, see: