Peter Grünberg

Peter Grünberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007 together with Albert Fert for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance.

Grünberg is a German physicist and his discovery with Albert Fert of giant magnetoresistance brought about a breakthrough in gigabyte hard disk drives. He is a highly respected speaker on the world energy problems, global energy consumption and the energy consumption of computers.

Apart from the Nobel Prize, Professor Grünberg has been awarded 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 in 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 in the category “Universities and research institutions” by the European Patent Office and European Commission in 2006.

Grünberg completed his undergraduate studies in physics in 1962 at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Ger. He was awarded a master’s degree  (1966) and doctorate (1969) by the Darmstadt University of Technology.

From 1972 until his retirement in 2004, he was a research scientist at the Institute of Solid State Research at the Helmholtz Research Centre in Jülich, Germany.