The GMR Effect – Quantum Mechanics in Our Everyday Lives
The Department of Physics and RWTHextern are hosting the public lecture series "Understanding Physics!"
Researcher Peter Grünberg from Jülich and his Parisian colleague Albert Fert were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2007 for their discovery of the giant magnetoresistive effect (GMR). On Saturday, November 17, 2018, the second lecture in the series "Understanding Physics" organized by the Department of Physics and RWTHextern is scheduled to take place. Private lecturer Dr. Daniel Bürgler JARA-FIT from Forschungszentrum Jülich will offer a German-language presentation on the topic "Peter Grünbergs Nobel Prize – The GMR Effekt: Quantum Mechanics in Our Everyday Lives."
The lecture is set to begin at 11am in lecture hall H03 at the C.A.R.L. lecture hall complex, Claßenstraße 11. Admission to the event is free; prior registration is not needed.
The lecture will give an outline of the GMR effect's quantum mechanical background. Since small external magnetic fields lead to significant changes in resistance, the GMR effect is well-suited for the construction of tiny, highly sensitive sensors. This is why it has been used billions of times since 1998 in disk read heads of computer hard disk drives and has thus found its way into our digital everyday lives. After the lecture, there will be an opportunity for participants to try out experiments on interlayer coupling and the GMR effect for themselves.
Source: Press and Communications