Stockholm, October 2
Three scientists on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for inventing optical lasers that have paved the way for advanced precision instruments used in corrective eye surgery and in industry, the jury said.
Arthur Ashkin of the United States won one half of the 9 million Swedish kronor (about $1.01 million or 870,000 euros) prize, while Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada shared the other half.
Ashkin, 96, was honoured for his invention of “optical tweezers” that grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells with their laser beam fingers.
With this, he was able to use the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects, “an old dream of science fiction”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. A major breakthrough came in 1987 when Ashkin used the tweezers to capture living bacteria without harming them, the Academy noted.
Ashkin, who made his discovery while working at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1952 to 1991, is the oldest winner of a Nobel prize, beating out American Leonid Hurwicz who was 90 when he won the 2007 Economics prize.
Meanwhile Mourou, 74, and Strickland — only the third woman to win the Physics prize — won for helping develop a method to generate ultra-short optical pulses, “the shortest and most intense laser pulses ever created by mankind”, the jury said. Their technique is now used in corrective eye surgery.
Mourou was affiliated with the Ecole Polytechnique of France and the University of Michigan in the US, while Strickland, his student, is a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
Speaking by phone to the academy, a moved Strickland said she was thrilled to receive the Nobel prize that has been the least accessible for women. Before her, only Marie Curie and Maria Goeppert Mayer had won the Physics prize in 1903 and 1963, respectively.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has in the past lamented the small number of women laureates in the science fields in general.
Last year, US astrophysicists Barry Barish, Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss won the Physics prize for the discovery of gravitational waves, predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago as part of his theory of general relativity.
The winners of the Chemistry prize will be announced on Wednesday, followed by the Peace prize on Friday. The Economics prize will wrap up the Nobel season on Monday, October 8.
For the first time since 1949, the Swedish Academy has postponed the announcement of the 2018 Nobel Literature Prize until next year, amid a #MeToo scandal and bitter internal dispute that has prevented it from functioning properly. — AFP
Turning light into tools
- Inventions by the three scientists date back to mid-1980s and over the years their breakthroughs in laser technology have turned light beams into precision tools for everything from eye surgery to micro-machining
Of optical tweezers and high-intensity lasers
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US’ Arthur Ashkin won half of the prize for inventing “optical tweezers”. His work was on the realisation that the pressure of a beam of light could push microscopic objects and trap them in position. A breakthrough came in 1987 when he used the optical tweezers to grab living bacteria without harming them
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Frenchman Gerard Mourou and Canada’s Donna Strickland shared the other half for work on high-intensity lasers. Their research centred on developing the most intense laser pulses ever created, paving the way for precision instruments used today in corrective eye surgery and industrial applications
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