Peter Grünberg

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Peter Grünberg

Born 18 May 1939 (1939-05-18) (age 69)
Pilsen, Germany
Nationality German
Fields Physics
Institutions Carleton University
Jülich Research Centre
University of Cologne
Alma mater Darmstadt University of Technology
Doctoral advisor Stefan Hüfner
Known for Giant magnetoresistive effect
Notable awards Wolf Prize in Physics (2006)
European Inventor of the Year (2006)
Japan Prize 2007
Nobel Prize in Physics (2007)
Religious stance Christian[1]

Peter Andreas Grünberg (May 18, 1939) is a German physicist, and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his coincidental discovery with Albert Fert of giant magnetoresistance which brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives.[2]

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[edit] Biography

Grünberg was born in Pilsen, Bohemia, which at the time was in the Nazi-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now the Czech Republic) to the family of Fjodor Grinberg. His father changed his name from Grinberg to Grünberg in 1941.

After staying for some time in the Petermann[3] house in Untersekerschan[4], the rest of the Grünberg family, like the rest of the German-speaking majority of Pilsen, was expelled by the Czech government by means of the Beneš decrees after World War II. They came to Lauterbach, Hesse together with his mother (who died in 2002 aged 100)[5] and sister, where he attended gymnasium.[6]

Grünberg received his intermediate diploma in 1962 from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. He then attended the Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany, where he received his diploma in physics in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1969. From 1969-1972, he did postdoctoral work at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. He later joined the Institute for Solid State Physics at the Jülich Research Centre, where he became a leading researcher in the field of thin film and multilayer magnetism until his retirement in 2004.[6]

[edit] Important work

In 1986 he discovered the antiparallel exchange coupling between ferromagnetic layers separated by a thin non-ferromagnetic layer, and in 1988 he discovered the Giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR).[7] GMR was simultaneously and independently discovered by Albert Fert from the Université de Paris Sud. It has been used extensively in read heads of modern hard drives. Another application of the GMR effect is non-volatile, magnetic random access memory.

Apart from the Nobel Prize, Grünberg's work also has been rewarded with shared prizes in the APS International Prize for New Materials, the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Magnetism Award, the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize, the Wolf Prize in Physics and the 2007 Japan Prize. He won the German Future Prize for Technology and Innovation in 1998 and was named European Inventor of the Year[8] in the category "Universities and research institutions" by the European Patent Office and European Commission in 2006.

[edit] Selected publications

  • DE patent 3820475 "Magnetfeldsensor mit ferromagnetischer, dünner Schicht" filed on 16.06.1988
  • US patent 4949039 "Magnetic field sensor with ferromagnetic thin layers having magnetically antiparallel polarized components"
  • Grünberg, Peter, Y. Suzuki, T. Katayama, K. Takanashi, R. Schreiber, K. Tanaka. 1997. "The magneto-optical effect of Cr(001) wedged ultrathin films grown on Fe(001)". JMMM . 165, 134.
  • P. Grünberg, J.A. Wolf, R.Schäfer. 1996. "Long Range Exchange Interactions in Epitaxial Layered Magnetic Structures". Physica B 221, 357.
  • M. Schäfer, Q. Leng, R. Schreiber, K. Takanashi, P. Grünberg, W. Zinn. 1995. "Experiments on Interlayer Exchange Coupling" (invited at 5th NEC Symp., Karuizawa, Japan). J. of Mat. Sci. and Eng. . B31, 17.
  • A. Fert, P. Grünberg, A. Barthelemy, F. Petroff, W. Zinn (invited at ICM in Warsaw, 1994). 1995. "Layered magnetic structures: interlayer exchange coupling and giant magnetoresistance". JMMM. 140-144, 1.
  • P. Grünberg, A. Fuß, Q. Leng, R. Schreiber, J.A. Wolf. 1993. "Interlayer Coupling and its Relation to Growth and Structure". Proc. of NATO workshop on "Magnetism and Structure in Systems of Reduced Dimension", ed. by R.F.C. Farrow et al., NATO ASI Series B: Physics Vol. 309, p. 87, Plenum Press, N.Y. 1993.
  • A. Fuß, S. Demokritov, P. Grünberg, W. Zinn. 1992. "Short- and long period oscillations in the exchange coupling of Fe across epitaxially grown Al- and Au-interlayers". JMMM. 103, L211.
  • G. Binasch, P. Grünberg, F. Saurenbach, W. Zinn. 1989. "Enhanced magnetoresistance in Fe-Cr layered structures with antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange". Physical Review B39. 4282.
  • P. Grünberg, R. Schreiber, Y. Pang, M.B. Brodsky, H. Sowers. 1986. "Layered Magnetic Structures: Evidence for antiferromagnetic coupling of Fe-layers across Cr-interlayers". Physical Review Letters. 57, 2442.

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