Physics Nobel goes to hard drive poineers
This year’s physics Nobel Prize is awarded for the technology that is used to read data on hard disks.
This year’s physics Nobel Prize is awarded for the technology that is used to read data on hard disks.
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| Nobel Prize winner Peter Grünberg |
They discovered that very weak magnetic changes can give rise to major differences in electrical resistance in a GMR system. A system of this kind is the perfect tool for reading data from hard disks when information registered magnetically has to be converted to electric current. Soon researchers and engineers began work to enable use of the effect in read-out heads.
In 1997 the first read-out head based on the GMR effect was launched and this soon became the standard technology - even the most recent read-out techniques of today are further developments of GMR.
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| Albert Fert's work on GMR secured his Nobel Prize jointly with Grünberg |
