Last January French Physicist and Noble Laureate, Dr. Albert Fert gave two stirring lectures to a packed house at NTHU. Dr. Fert received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of a new physical phenomenon, the Giant Magneto-Resistance (GMR) in 2007. He is currently a professor at the Unversite de Paris-Sud and director of a joint physics research laboratory between the French National Scientific Research Center and the Thales Group. As an outstanding scientist, Dr. Fert is well known for his keen observation that allows him to quickly get to the core of issues. Those present at his lectures, however, found him to be warm and approachable while carrying a degree of sophistication and elegance.

His first lecture, "Spintronics: From Spintronics to the Contemporary Computer and Telephone," was prepared for a general audiences and presented in the morning of the 23rd. The second lecture, "The Spintronic Choice for the Future¡X the Carbon Nanotube" was presented in the afternoon on the same day in which he illustrated how the carbon nanotube can provide better transport between source and drain than semiconductors currently in use.

Spintronics, the focus of both lectures, is currently a hot research topic in the field of physics and has attracted many devoted scientists to the study of the carbon nanotube for its advantageous characteristics in electronics and mechanics. Scientists believe that current research on the combination of carbon nanotube with spintronics has great potential and will lead to further technological development. It comes at no surprise that Dr. Fert's lectures were enthusiastically received by students, faculty members as well as scientists in the area.