STOCKHOLM, Oct 9: France’s Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for a discovery that has shrunk the size of hard disks found in computers, iPods and other digital devices.

The duo discovered a new physical effect that let the computer industry develop sensitive reading tools for information stored on computer hard drives from the tiniest laptops to feature-rich portable music and video players.

“The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery,” Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told The Associated Press.

In its citation, the academy said the discovery could be considered “one of the first real applications of the promising field of nanotechnology,” the science dedicated to building materials from the molecular level.

“Applications of this phenomenon have revolutionised techniques for retrieving data from hard disks,” the citation said. “The discovery also plays a major role in various magnetic sensors as well as for the development of a new generation of electronics.”

Fert, 69, is the scientific director of the Mixed Unit for Physics at CNRS/Thales, while Gruenberg, 68, is a professor at the Institute of Solid State Research in Germany.

In 1988, the pair independently discovered the physical effect known as giant magneto-resistance, or GMR. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads.—AP