Albert Fert

Born 7 March 1938, Fert spent his career in French physics labs, working the boundary between magnetism and electronics. The breakthrough came when he discovered giant magnetoresistance, a phenomenon where thin-film structures of alternating magnetic materials changed their resistance dramatically under magnetic fields. That finding, made independently alongside Peter Grünberg, became the engine of modern hard disk density - suddenly you could read microscopic bits reliably, and storage exploded. The Nobel came in 2007. He went on to hold posts at Paris-Saclay University, direct a joint CNRS-Thales research unit, and teach at Michigan State, spending his emeritus years still neck-deep in the physics of spin.