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Albert Fert (; born 7 March 1938) is a French
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
and one of the discoverers of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in
gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The SI prefix, prefix ''giga-, giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte i ...
hard disks. Currently, he is an emeritus professor at Paris-Saclay University in
Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in ÃŽle-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...
, scientific director of a joint laboratory ('' Unité mixte de recherche'') between the
Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...
(National Scientific Research Centre) and Thales Group, and adjunct professor at
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...
. He was awarded the 2007
Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...
together with Peter Grünberg.


Biography

In 1962 Albert Fert graduated from the
École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, where he attended courses by the physicists Alfred Kastler and Jacques Friedel. (As an undergraduate he had strong interests in photography and cinema, and was a great admirer of the work of
Ingmar Bergman Ernst Ingmar Bergman (14 July 1918 â€“ 30 July 2007) was a Swedish film and theatre director and screenwriter. Widely considered one of the greatest and most influential film directors of all time, his films have been described as "profoun ...
.) After the École Normale Supérieure, Fert attended the
University of Grenoble The (, ''Grenoble Alps University'', abbr. UGA) is a Grands établissements, ''grand établissement'' in Grenoble, France. Founded in 1339, it is the third largest university in France with about 60,000 students and over 3,000 researchers. Es ...
and in 1963 received his Ph.D. (''doctorat de troisième cycle'') from the
University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...
with a thesis prepared in the fundamental electronic Orsay Faculty of Sciences and in the physical spectrometry laboratory of the University of Grenoble Faculty of Sciences. On his return from military service in 1965, Fert became assistant professor at the Orsay Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris XI ( Université Paris-Sud). Under the direction of Ian Campbell at the Laboratory of Solid Physics he prepared for a doctorate Sc.D. (''doctorat des sciences'') in Physical Sciences on the electrical transport properties of
nickel Nickel is a chemical element; it has symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive, but large pieces are slo ...
and
iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
, which he completed in 1970. He was named professor in 1976. Fert worked as research director for the university's condensed-matter physics laboratory (1970–1995) prior to moving to Unité Mixte de Physique, a laboratory jointly run by the Université Paris-Sud and the technology company
Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; ; ) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Philosophy, philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. Thales was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Seven Sages, founding figure ...
. In 1988, Albert Fert at Orsay in France, and Peter Gruenberg at Jülich in Germany, simultaneously and independently discovered giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in magnetic multilayers. This discovery is considered to mark the birth of spintronics, a new subfield of electronics that exploits not only the electric charge of the electrons but also their magnetism (associated with their intrinsic angular momentum, or spin). Spintronics has already contributed important applications; the introduction of GMR read heads in hard disks has led to a considerable increase in the density of information storage. Other spintronic properties are exploited in magnetic random access memory (MRAM), which may soon impact computer and phone technology. In 2007, Fert and Prof. Grünberg jointly received the Japan Award (300.000 Euro) for their discovery of GMR. In October 2006, Professor Fert received an honorary doctorate from the Department of Physics of the University of Kaiserslautern. Fert has made many contributions to the development of spintronics. Following his 2007 Nobel Prize, he began to explore possible spintronics applications of topological properties at surfaces and interfaces. His most recent works are on the topologically protected magnetic solitons called skyrmions and on the conversion between charge current and spin current by topological insulators.


Honors and awards

*
American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
's International Prize for New Materials (1994) * Grand prix de physique Jean Ricard of the French Physical Society (1994) * International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Magnetism Award (1994) *
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
Europhysics Prize (1997) *
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...
Gold Medal (2003) * Gutenberg Lecture Award (2006) * Wolf Prize in Physics (2006) * Japan Prize (2007) * Elected to the
French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...
in 2004 *
Nobel Prize in Physics The Nobel Prize in Physics () is an annual award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions to mankind in the field of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the ...
(2007) * Gay-Lussac Humboldt Award (2014)


References


External links


Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/Thales official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fert, Albert 1938 births Commanders of the Legion of Honour École Normale Supérieure alumni French Nobel laureates French physicists Grand Cross of the Ordre national du Mérite Living people Members of the French Academy of Sciences Michigan State University faculty Nobel laureates in Physics People from Carcassonne University of Paris alumni Wolf Prize in Physics laureates Paris-Saclay University Paris-Saclay University people Paris-Saclay University alumni Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research