After the École Normale Supérieure, Fert attended theUniversity of Grenoble and in 1963 received his Ph.D. (doctorat de troisième cycle) from theUniversity of Paris with a thesis prepared in the fundamental electronicOrsay Faculty of Sciences and in the physical spectrometry laboratory of the University of Grenoble Faculty of Sciences.
On his return from military service in 1965, Fert became assistant professor at the Orsay Faculty of Sciences of theUniversity of Paris XI (Université Paris-Sud).[5] Under the direction of Ian Campbell at theLaboratory of Solid Physics he prepared for a doctorate Sc.D. (doctorat des sciences) in Physical Sciences on the electrical transport properties ofnickel andiron, which he completed in 1970.[3] He was named professor in 1976.
Fert worked as research director for the university'scondensed-matter physics laboratory (1970–1995) prior to moving to Unité Mixte de Physique, a laboratory jointly run by the Université Paris-Sud and the technology companyThales.
In 1988, Albert Fert at Orsay in France, and Peter Gruenberg at Jülich in Germany, simultaneously and independently discoveredgiant magnetoresistance (GMR) in magnetic multilayers.[6][7] This discovery is considered to mark the birth of spintronics,[8][9] a new subfield of electronics that exploits not only the electric charge of the electrons but also their magnetism (associated with their intrinsic angular momentum, or spin). Spintronics has already contributed important applications; the introduction of GMR read heads in hard disks has led to a considerable increase in the density of information storage.[9] Other spintronic properties are exploited in magnetic random access memory (MRAM),[9][10] which may soon impact computer and phone technology. In 2007, Fert and Prof. Grünberg jointly received theJapan Award (300.000 Euro) for their discovery of GMR.
In October 2006, Professor Fert received an honorary doctorate from the Department of Physics of theUniversity of Kaiserslautern.[3]
Fert has made many contributions to the development of spintronics. Following his 2007 Nobel Prize, he began to explore possible spintronics applications of topological properties at surfaces and interfaces.[11] His most recent works are on the topologically protected magnetic solitons called skyrmions[12] and on the conversion between charge current and spin current by topological insulators.[13]
^Tsymbal, E. Y. (Evgeny Y.); Zutic, Igor (2012).Handbook of spin transport and magnetism. Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press.ISBN978-1-4398-0377-6.OCLC756724063.
^Rojas-Sánchez, J.-C.; Oyarzún, S.; Fu, Y.; Marty, A.; Vergnaud, C.; Gambarelli, S.; Vila, L.; Jamet, M.; Ohtsubo, Y. (1 March 2016). "Spin to Charge Conversion at Room Temperature by Spin Pumping into a New Type of Topological Insulator: $\ensuremath{\alpha}$-Sn Films".Physical Review Letters.116 (9) 096602.arXiv:1509.02973.Bibcode:2016PhRvL.116i6602R.doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.096602.PMID26991190.S2CID91173907.
