Albert Fert of France and Peter Grünberg of Germany were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for a discovery that has shrunk the size of hard disks found in computers, iPods and other digital devices.
The duo discovered a totally new physical effect that has let the computer industry develop sensitive reading tools for information stored on computer hard drives from the tiniest laptops to portable music and video players.
"The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery," Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said. "You would not have an iPod without this effect."
In its citation, the Nobel academy said the discovery could also be considered "one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology," the science dedicated to building materials from the molecular level.
"Applications of this phenomenon have revolutionized techniques for retrieving data from hard disks," the prize citation said. "The discovery also plays a major role in various magnetic sensors as well as for the development of a new generation of electronics."
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The announcement also broke a streak of American wins from 2000-2006 that saw 20 people awarded the prize, of whom 16 were U.S. citizens or did their work at U.S. laboratories and universities.
The last time no Americans were awarded the physics prize was in 1999, when Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus Veltman, both of the Netherlands, were honored for "elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics."
Phillip Schewe, a physicist and spokesman for the American Institute of Physics, said this year's prize honored "a terrific combination of great physics and huge practical application."
"I can hardly think of an application that has a bigger bang than the magnetic hard drive industry," Schewe added. "Every one of us probably owns three or four or five devices, probably more, that depend on billions of bits of information stored on something the size of a dime."
Fert, 69, is a professor at the Université Paris-Sud and scientific director of Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thalès in Orsay, France. Grünberg, 68, is a professor at the Institute of Solid State Research in Jülich, Germany.
In 1988, the pair independently discovered the physical effect known as giant magnetoresistance, or GMR. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads.
Both realized at an early stage that their discoveries would have a huge impact. In his first scientific publication on the effect, Fert predicted it would generate important applications."You can never predict in physics," he said in an interview. "You can somewhat in maths, but in physics, you can never be sure of what you dream up," adding that he has seen the fruit of his labors in more mundane situations, too.
"These days when I go to my grocer and see him type on a computer, I say 'Wow! He's using something I put together in my mind,' " Fert said. "It's wonderful."
Grünberg went a step further and filed a patent as he was writing his first scientific publication on the discovery, the academy said.
Speaking to reporters in Germany, Grünberg was elated but said he was not surprised.
"Because I have received a lot of awards, I was often asked: 'When will the big award come?' " he told reporters. He said with a wink that he made sure to be at his office Tuesday morning "because one knows that Stockholm usually calls at around 11:30 a.m."
Grünberg will share the 10 million kronor, or $1.5 million, prize with Fert.
It was not the first time both men were honored for their research. Earlier this year, they won the 23rd annual Japan Prize given out by the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan and shared a ¥50 million, or $425,000, cash prize.
On Monday, Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, of the United States, and Martin Evans, of Britain, were awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for groundbreaking stem cell research.
Prizes for chemistry, literature, peace and economics will be announced through Oct. 15.
The peace award is announced in Oslo, while the other prizes are announced in Stockholm. The prizes were established in the will of the Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.
The prizes are always presented to the recipients on the Dec. 10 anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
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