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Joined 2026-09-21 Message
Incoming links: Albert Fert
Giant magnetoresistance 2026-10-18
Giant magnetoresistance connects the relative magnetizations of adjacent magnetic layers to their electrical transport. In a suitable magnetic-metal/nonmagnetic-metal stack, aligning the layers can leave one spin channel with an easy conducting path through both magnetic layers; opposite alignments make each channel encounter a more resistive layer. Albert Fert's account traces the spin-dependent-conduction idea to Nevill Mott and distinguishes the later device geometries.[ref]
Nobel Lecture: Origin, development, and future of spintronics by Albert Fert. pp.1517–1520, spin-dependent conduction and CIP/CPP geometry
The beauty is that a magnetic arrangement becomes an electrical readout. Preparing reproducible layers, establishing their magnetizations, and measuring electrical resistance are separate parts of that inference. The Fe-Cr giant magnetoresistance experiments show how those parts were joined; the two-current resistor model isolates a simple transport mechanism under stated assumptions.
Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007 2026-10-18
Awarded in equal shares to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg for discovering giant magnetoresistance.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2007 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2007 summary: Fert and Grünberg one half each for giant magnetoresistance.