Physicists Score Nobel Win for Nanotech Breakthrough

The 2007 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to two scientists who discovered the technology that has made today’s tiny hard disk drives possible. Albert Fert of France and Peter Grünberg of Germany are the joint winners of the award for their independent discoveries of Giant Magnetoresistance, an effect in which very weak magnetic changes give rise to major differences in electrical resistance. GMR is considered one of the first real applications of the field of nanotechnology, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which granted the award.