The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 “for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics” with one half to Arthur Ashkin and the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland. Nobel Prize 2018 For Physics Winner: Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou & Donna Strickland Awarded Honour For Laser Inventions.

Arthur Ashkin is an American scientist who worked at Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies. He started his work on manipulation of microparticles with laser light in the late 1960s which resulted in the invention of optical tweezers in 1986.

Gérard Mourou is a French pioneer in the field of electrical engineering and lasers. Along with Donna Strickland, he co-invented a technique called chirped pulse amplification, or CPA, which was later used to create ultrashort-pulse, very high-intensity laser pulses. While Dr. Strickland's ultrafast laser group develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations. “We need to celebrate women physicists because they’re out there… I’m honoured to be one of those women," said Donna Strickland, after winning the prize.

Check the 'Nobel' tweet below

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded 111 times to 207 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2017. John Bardeen is the only Nobel Laureate who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice, in 1956 and 1972. This means that a total of 206 individuals have received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Nobel website says that the Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 was divided, and one half awarded to Rainer Weiss, the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 02, 2018 03:52 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).