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Skills gap 4: Giant magnetoresistance
October 10, 2007
If you pay attention to this sort of thing, you know the Nobel Prize for Physics was just awarded to Albert Fert and Peter Gruenberg for their work in giant magnetoresistance. I can’t possibly begin to explain the technical aspects of this, but this is considered one of the first major application of nanotechnology. The everyday practical value is that their work supported a quantum leap in the amount of data that can be stored in a hard disk. Without it, an iPod would probably look like a lunchbox and driven by a car battery. Here is a brief excerpt from the official prize description:
“The discovery of giant magnetoresistance immediately opened the door to a wealth of new scientific and technological possibilities, including a tremendous influence on the technique of data storage and magnetic sensors. Thousands of scientists all around the world are today working on magnetoelectronic phenomena and their exploration. The story of the GMR effect is a very good demonstration of how a totally unexpected scientific discovery can give rise to completely new technologies and commercial products.”
If I understand the story correctly, these two scientists were not working together, but separately and in parallel on the same issue. Effectively, they approached it from two directions and ultimately ended up with results that complimented each other. Hence splitting the prize.
Trying to relate awarding the Nobel Prize with retiring plant engineers is something of a stretch. But the notion of the United States losing its edge as a technological leader is more on point. Fert is French and Gruenberg is German, but I suspect much of the technology to apply and commercialize their research was carried out in the U.S. That’s one thing we’re very good at, even if we don’t do much of (or any of) the manufacturing. Technological entrepreneurship has been a cornerstone of our economy since the beginning, and we need to maintain that.
Posted by Peter Welander on October 10, 2007 | Comments (0)