Albert Fert of France and Peter Gruenberg of Germany yesterday won the Nobel Physics Prize for work that led to the miniaturised hard disk, one of the breakthroughs of modern information technology-

Fert, 69 and Gruenberg, 68, were lauded for discovering a principle called giant magnctorcsistance, or GMR.

GMR can "be considered one of the first real application of the promising field of nanotechnology," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in its citation.

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Working independently. Fert and Gruenberg discovered in 1988 that minute magnetic changes in a GMR system lead to huge differ-. encesinelectrical resistance.

These differences in turn cause changes in the current in the readout head, which scans a hard disk to spot the ones and zeroes in which the data is stored.

As a result, the readout head is able to read smaller and weaker magnetic areas - and this sensitivity means information can be packed more densely on the hard disk.

Matin Durrani, editor of Physics World, a journal published by Britain's institute of Physics, said the award was fitting.

"Most people draw up short lists (of potential winners) for fun — of course we don't know who will win -- and they are two people we suspected might win it," Durrani said.

"I am really pleased that it has gone for some thing very practically based and rooted in research relevant to industry. It shows that physics has a real relevance not just to understanding natural phenomena but to real products in everyday life."

Last year, the Physics Prize went to US space scientists John Mather and George Smoot for a pioneering space mission, which supports the “Big Bang" theory about the origins of the Universe.