Albert Fert delivered his Nobel Lecture on 8 December 2007, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was introduced by Professor Per Carlson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Summary: The fabrication of very thin layers of magnetic metals made possible the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance effect, GMR. The conduction between layers is spin dependent and small changes of the magnetic field result in a significant current change, which is used in computer memory applications. An emerging research field is spintronics.