2024-09-29 09:00:00
Albert Fert, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007, is professor emeritus at the University of Paris-Saclay. Since the end of 2023 he has been working in the laboratory that bears his name, which brings together the CNRS, Thales and the University of Paris-Saclay. In 1988 he discovered the giant magnetoresistance thanks to emerging nanotechnologies.
Does your discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR), which gave birth to spintronics, have any implications for the general public?
The first generation of applications of the giant magnetoresistor, in the 1990s, was the creation of magnetic sensors. You have them in the engine of your car and the compass on my cell phone is one of them. And since 1997, hard drives have been using GMR reading, which has allowed the capacity of hard drives to be multiplied by about 1,000. These GMR disks have given a strong boost to the development of data centers, which store huge amounts of information for the cloud or even artificial intelligence. As for spintronic magnetic memory chips, they have been used since their first generation in 2006 for avionics and space.
What are the other benefits of your discovery?
As we witness the worrying increase in energy spent by digital technology, which will soon reach 20% of global electricity production, our scientific community is seeking to correct this explosion in energy spending through the development of low-energy spintronic components, GMR.
These are the so-called STT-RAM components. [en référence à Spin Transfer ou « transfert de spin »] which appeared on the market in 2017 and are starting to be introduced to replace the silicon components of conventional electronics – RAM – consume much less energy. Connected watches use STT-RAM for GPS connection. And we are preparing the next generations of even more efficient components. As part of the France 2030 programme, the PEPR Spin plan has as its theme “Spintronic innovations for frugal, agile and sustainable digital technology”.
You were a member of the strategic orientation advisory committee of the European “Graphene Flagship” project. What did this mean for the real economy?
This program has mainly led to the creation of composite materials that combine the addition of graphene [le graphène étant une couche monoatomique de carbone] to other materials, both to increase the thermal conductivity of the material in avionics, and for applications such as filters, water or air. The Grapes Spearhead initiative has also developed a high-performance solar cell using graphene. Electric vehicle batteries also use graphene for its higher conductivity and better strength. There are other implications, for example in the biomedical field with brain signal sensors or even diagnostic sensors.
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