Albert Fert

Albert Fert (born 7 March 1938) is a French physicist. He discovered giant magnetoresistance which was used to make gigabyte hard disks much easier to build. He is a professor at Université Paris-Sud in Orsay and scientific director of a laboratory called Unité mixte de recherche. The laboratory is part of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Scientific Research Centre) and Thales Group. He was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with the German physicist Peter Grünberg.
Studies.
Fert graduated in 1962 from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He received his master's degree in 1963 at the University of Paris, and earned his PhD in 1970 at the Université Paris-Sud.
In 1988 Fert discovered Giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in iron and chromium which began spintronics; GMR was also discovered by Peter Grünberg from the Jülich Research Centre but Peter Grünberg did not work with Fert. Since 1988, Albert Fert has helped to improve spintronics.