The Nobel Prize in physics conferred for nanotechnic
The names of 2007 Nobel Prize winners in physics are declared in Sweden. They are Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg who independently discovered the effect of the Giant Magnetoresistance in 1988.
The effect of the Giant Magnetoresistance allows to create the structures where the inconsiderable change of the magnetic field leads to a considerable change of the electric resistance of the whole system.
This discovery, which was classified by the Nobel Prize Committee as nanotechnic, found its practical realization in the computer hard disks and allowed in the last years to reduce the size and increase the capacity of the latter. The first information reading systems based upon the effect of the Giant Magnetoresistance were created in 1997 and soon became the industrial standard.
Albert Fert was born in 1938, he’s a citizen of France and works at the university Paris-11. Peter Grunberg was born in Germany in 1939. He works for the research centre in the German city Julich, North Rhine-Westphfalia state.
Since 2001 the Nobel Prize in each category amounts 10 million krona (in 2007 this amount was equal to 1,542 million dollars). As there are two winners in the same category, the prize will be divided equally between them.
The solemn ceremony of Nobel Prize awards will take place on December, 10th, on the day of Alfred Nobel’s death. The King of Sweden will, traditionally, present the awards in Stockholm Concert House and then the Nobel banquet will be carried out in the Blue room of the city hall .
