Nano-tech pair share Nobel Prize

A French and a German scientist shared the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics today for their discovery of a process used by billions of people on their computers and digital music players.

The technique “can also be considered one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its citation.

In 1988 France’s Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg each independently discovered a totally new physical effect – giant magnetoresistance, or GMR, a process where the resistance of some materials drops dramatically when a magnetic field is applied.

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

Last year, Americans John C. Mather and George F. Smoot won for their work examining the infancy of the universe, studies that have aided the understanding of galaxies and stars and increasing support for the Big Bang theory of the beginning of the universe.

Prizes for chemistry, literature, peace and economics will be announced over the coming days.

The peace award is announced in Oslo, while the other prizes are announced in Stockholm.

The awards, each of which carries a cash prize of around £750,000 (€1m), were established in the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.