Peter Gruenberg, a German physicist and Nobel Prize winner whose work revolutionized digital data storage, has died at age 78. His 2007 award became known as the “iPod Nobel” for paving the way for spintronic devices.
Gruenberg died last week, said the Research Centre Juelich near Cologne in a statement mourning the loss of "an excellent researcher" and "well-respected and popular colleague," the Economic Times reported.
Gruenberg received the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics, together with French scientist Albert Fert, after both had separately discovered so-called giant magnetoresistance which led to a breakthrough in the development of gigabyte hard disks, the Times said.
Their work laid the foundations for the field of spintronics, which exploits the quantum mechanical spin of electrons for micro- and nanoelectronics, with applications ranging from video tape to MP3 players and hard disks, according to the center, per the Times.
"Without exaggeration one can say Peter Gruenberg and his discovery of giant magnetoresistance decisively changed our lives," the institute in a statement, according to Agence France-Presse. "Without him, modern computers and smartphones as we know them would be unthinkable."
The Nobel Prize recognized Gruenberg in a Twitter post this week along with other admirers.
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