Abstract

This year Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Alber Fert and Peter Grunberg for their independently discovery of Giant MagnetoResistance (GMR). GMR is the large change in the resistance of multilayers of ferromagnetic and non-magnetic metal by applying a small magnetic field to change the magnetization directions in ferromagnetic layers from parallel to antiparallel configuration. The discovery of GMR led to a new impressive research field, known as spintronics, which is based on use of spin of electron instead of its charge to transfer or store information. Applications of GMR have revolutionized techniques for read-out heads of extremely compact hard disks. It also plays a major role in various magnetic sensors and nonvolatile Random Access Memories. In this talk we review physics of GMR, its main applications and some of more recent developments in the field of spintronics.



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