It is considered to be among the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a physicist. The fame and prestige that immediately accompany its recipients are products of innate talent, years of concentrated effort, and luck. Awarded annually, the Nobel Prize in Physics seeks to honor lasting and outstanding contributions to the field. The prestige is due in part to the long and rigorous process of being nominated for the prize.

The first Nobel Prize in Physics was claimed by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1901. This year, the prize went to two Europeans for their independent and nearly simultaneous discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR) in 1988. Germany’s Peter Grünberg and France’s Albert Fert will share the $1.5 million and collect their medals at an annual ceremony in December in Stockholm. Fert is currently a professor at Université Paris-Sud, the same institution at which he obtained his Ph.D. in 1970. Grünberg is affiliated with the Jülich Research Centre. Obtaining his Ph.D. from the Darmstadt University of Technology in 1969, he moved onto a postdoctoral position at Carleton University in Canada before settling in Jülich. Both men were also awarded the Wolf Prize last year.

The phenomenon of Giant Magnetoresistance has far-reaching practical implications – especially in nanotechnology. From portable computers to music players, there is a constant demand for smaller size but increased storage. GMR is the technology that makes this possible. The simplest type of system in which GMR can be observed consists of a layer of non-magnetic metal inserted in between two layers of magnetic metal. The basic idea behind GMR is that when both magnetic layers are magnetized in the same direction, the majority of electrons will have the same spin, and thus resistance to their movement through the layers is low. On the other hand, if the magnetization of one magnetic layer is opposite to that of the other, then the electrons in one of the layers will have anti-parallel spin, and therefore higher resistance. The application to data storage is apparent when the magnetization of one magnetic layer is fixed and the magnetization of the other layer is varied, leading to high or low resistance which corresponds to binary one or zero. GMR is a first step in the development of spintronics (a new type of electronics based on the spin of the electron), and it also leads the way for the development of the next generation of memory, MRAM, which can serve as both working and permanent memory. In other words, MRAM could replace both the traditional hard disk and SDRAM that are widely used today.

The applicability of Giant Magnetoresistance certainly makes this year’s Nobel Prize well deserved. As for Fert and Grünberg’s plans on the prize money, Fert says that he will share some of the winnings with his colleagues. Grünberg said that his share of the prize would let him conduct research “without having to apply for grants every tiny bit.”