Donna Strickland, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, on Tuesday became the first woman in 55 years and the third ever to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing it with an American scientist and another from France for their work in laser physics.

The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences on Tuesday said half the $1.28-million Cdn prize goes to Arthur Ashkin of the United States, and the other half will be shared by Strickland and Gérard Mourou of France.

The academy said Ashkin, who is the oldest person ever named as a laureate at 96, developed "optical tweezers" that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them.

Strickland and Mourou separately helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have "opened up new areas of research and led to broad industrial and medical applications," it said.

Their discoveries became the standard for high-intensity lasers used in millions of corrective eye surgeries every year, among other applications.

Strickland is the first female Nobel laureate to be named in three years and is only the third woman winning in physics: Marie Curie earned the award in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963.

"Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we're out there. And hopefully in time it'll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe," Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

On Monday, American James Allison and Japan's Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body's own immune system.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday, followed by the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced on Oct. 8.

The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish business tycoon Alfred Nobel, whose discovery of dynamite generated a vast fortune used to fund the prize.

However, for the first time in decades, no Nobel Prize in Literature will be given this year after a scandal over sexual misconduct allegations saw a string of members leave the board of the Swedish Academy that awards it.

With files from CBC News and Reuters</s>Three researchers, including a woman and a nonagenarian, on Tuesday shared the 2018 Nobel Physics Prize for inventions in the field of laser physics which have paved the way for advanced precision instruments used in corrective eye surgery and industry, the jury said.

Arthur Ashkin of the United States won one half of the nine 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.

Meanwhile Mourou, 74, and Strickland — only the third woman to win the Physics Prize — won for together developing 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.

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.

On Monday, two immunologists, James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, won this year’s Nobel Medicine Prize for research into how the body’s natural defences can fight cancer.

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.</s>Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their work with lasers. Arthur Ashkin of the United States was awarded half the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize; the other half is shared by Gerard Mourou of France and Canadian Donna Strickland.

Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin, 96, developed “optical tweezers” that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them.

Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications.

Strickland is the first female Nobel laureate to be named in three years and is only the third woman to have won the physics prize; the first was Marie Curie in 1903.

“Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. And hopefully, in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe,” Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

On Monday, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel medicine prize for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body’s own immune system.

The Nobel chemistry prize comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize on Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced Oct. 8.</s>Stockholm, Oct 2: US scientist Arthur Ashkin (96), Gérard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems."

Ashkin's optical tweezers grab particles, atoms and molecules with their laser beam fingers. They can examine and manipulate viruses, bacteria and other living cells without damaging them. New opportunities for observing and controlling the machinery of life have been created.

According to Nobel committee, science fiction has become a reality. Optical tweezers make it possible to observe, turn, cut, push and pull with light. In many laboratories, laser tweezers are used to study biological processes, such as proteins, molecular motors, DNA or the inner life of cells.

Also Read | Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland win Nobel Prize 2018 in Physics



Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada have been awarded the Nobel in Physics "for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses." They paved the way towards the shortest and most intense laser pulses created by humankind. The technique they developed opened up new areas of research and led to broad industrial and medical applications.

Mourou and Strickland's technique is known as Chirped Pulse Amplication (CPA). Take a short laser pulse, stretch it in time, amplify it and squeeze it together again.

Also Read | James P. Allison, Tasuku Honjo win 2018 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

This year's Nobel Prize inventions revolutionised laser physics. Extremely small objects and incredibly fast processes now appear in a new light. Advanced precision instruments are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications.</s>STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their work with lasers.

Arthur Ashkin of the United States was awarded half the 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize; the other half is shared by Gerard Mourou of France and Canadian Donna Strickland.

Sweden's Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin, 96, developed "optical tweezers" that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them.

Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications.

Strickland is the first female Nobel laureate to be named in three years and is only the third woman to have won the physics prize; the first was Marie Curie in 1903.

"Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we're out there. And hopefully in time it'll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe," Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

On Monday, American James Allison and Japan's Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel medicine prize for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body's own immune system.

The Nobel chemistry prize comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize on Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced Oct. 8.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Arthur Ashkin, a Rumson resident awarded the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday, discusses his career.

STOCKHOLM — Three scientists from the United States, Canada and France won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work with lasers described as revolutionary and bringing science fiction into reality.

One of them, Arthur Ashkin, 96, of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, entered the Nobel record books by becoming the oldest laureate by six years. Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada is the first woman to have won a Nobel in three years and is only the third to have won for physics.

Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and University of Michigan shares half the prize’s 9-million-kronor, $1.01 million, with Strickland; Ashkin gets the other half.

Ashkin said Tuesday that he had thought his research was worthy of one of the world's most prestigious prizes but figured his time had passed. He had retired in 1990.

► Oct. 1: Houston doctor jointly awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine

 ► Oct. 1: Researcher reflects on cancer breakthrough, and the work still ahead

 ► Oct. 1: Man at center of Nobel Prize sex-abuse scandal convicted of rape

"I had given up," Ashkin said, sitting on a couch in his Rumson, New Jersey, living room. "I had stopped worrying about it."

Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin’s development of “optical tweezers” that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them realized “an old dream of science fiction — using the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects.”

Ashkin had made the discovery in 1987 at age 65. Early on in his career at Bell Labs, he didn't get a raise and was worried he would be fired after his research didn't pan out.

"I was always afraid I wasn’t smart enough," he said. "There were all these geniuses getting Nobel Prizes."

The tweezers are “extremely important for measuring small forces on individual molecules, small objects, and this has been very interesting in biology, to understand how things like muscle tissue work, what are the molecule motors behind the muscle tissue,” said David Haviland of the academy’s Nobel committee.

Ashkin's prize marked the ninth Nobel for work at New Jersey's Bell Labs, when it was home to research and development that supported AT&T during its monopoly.

Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications, including laser eye surgery. The academy said their 1985 article on the technique was “revolutionary.”

Strickland’s award is the first to have gone to a woman in physics since 1963, when it was won by Maria Goeppert-Mayer; the only other one was Marie Curie in 1903.

“Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. And hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe,” Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

Michael Moloney, chief executive of the American Institute of Physics, praised all the laureates.

► May 4: There won't be a 2018 Nobel prize for literature after sex scandal

 ► March 31: Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai visits her Pakistan hometown

“It is also a personal delight to see Dr. Strickland break the 55-year hiatus since a woman has been awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, making this year’s award all the more historic,” he said.

He credited the work of all three with “expanding what is possible at the extremes of time, space and forms of matter.”

On Monday, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel medicine prize for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body’s own immune system.

The Nobel chemistry prize comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced Oct. 8.

Although Ashkin is officially retired, for the past decade he has been working on technology that can lower the cost of solar energy — a project he said has taken on more urgency, not only because of his age, but also because of climate change.

► Dec. 10: Nobel Peace laureates: Nuclear war is 'one tantrum away'

 ► October 2017: British writer Kazuo Ishiguro wins 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature

His quest was interrupted a couple of years ago, when he had a procedure to fix his aorta. But he seems to have recovered. These days he walks down the steps each day to the unfinished basement that has become his laboratory, and he toils away.

He's been eager to get his research published.

"Now that I’m a Nobel Prize winner, they might say, 'Oh he’s a smart guy, we’d better accept his paper,' " Ashkin said. "Before, it was iffy.”

Members of the Nobel Committee for Physics, from left, Olga Botner, Goran K Hansson and Mats Larsson, sit in front of a screen displaying portraits of Arthur Ashkin of the United States, Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada during the announcement of the winners of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on October 2, 2018 in Stockholm.</s>A number of chemistry enthusiasts in the United States got up in the wee hours Wednesday and celebrated the news out of Sweden that two American scientists – including a woman – were among the three winners of the Nobel Prize for chemistry.

The previous day, a Canadian university professor had become the first woman in 55 years to claim the award in physics, making for an unprecedented combination. Never before had women earned the Nobel Prize in those categories in the same year.

Peter Dorhout, president of the American Chemical Society, longs for the day when that’s not news anymore.

Dorhout, who’s also an administrator at Kansas State University, said the science disciplines still haven’t broadened participation enough to represent society as a whole, and have not always welcomed or recognized female contributions.

“Going forward, we have to make sure the pipeline of nominees is rich in its diversity,’’ Dorhout said. “I mean that in the broadest sense. Yeah, it’s a great day (with the double female victories). That’s worth celebrating. But it is one mark and we have a long way to go.’’

Frances Arnold of the California Institute of Technology was awarded half the prize in chemistry for conducting the first directed evolution of enzymes, leading to more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemicals, including drugs, and in the production of renewable fuels. The other half went to George Smith of the University of Missouri and Gregory Winter of the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge, England.

Arnold is the fifth Nobel laureate in chemistry since the award was founded in 1901, and just the second one in the last 54 years. On Tuesday, Canada’s Donna Strickland became only the third woman ever to be honored with the Nobel Prize in physics, and the first one since 1963. The awards are worth about $1 million each.

Women have claimed the Nobel Prize at least 12 times in three of the other four fields – peace, literature and medicine – with economics still almost exclusively the domain of men. Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom has been the only woman to break through in economics, claiming the award in 2009 alongside UC-Berkeley professor Oliver Williamson.

More: Oldest Nobel Prize winner: 'I was always afraid I wasn’t smart enough'

That was a record-breaking year for women, who took home five Nobel Prizes, coming up short only in peace and physics (Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol Greider shared the award for medicine).

This year’s unusual achievement was greeted by practitioners in other areas that are typically dominated by men.

“Women have always played important roles in science and mathematics, yet have not always been recognized for their contributions,’’ said Rachel Levy, deputy executive director of the Mathematical Association of America. “The most important thing to celebrate today is the contribution that these fine scientists and their teams have made and their impact on science and society.’’

Levy and Dorhout pointed out the importance of making these disciplines widely available and appealing to students, starting at an early age, and of having examples to follow.

Dorhout said he has noticed an increased diversity in the student body and among participants in chemistry competitions, and believes a closer scrutiny of the selection process for nominating award candidates will further enhance that growth.

It certainly helps to have award-winning role models.

“Every time a woman or a person of color gets recognized for their contributions in science,’’ Dorhout said, “that’s another person that a young woman or a young man can look at and say, ‘Wow, she did it, he did it. So can I.’’’</s>This week the Swedish Academy is honoring experts who are transforming their fields with the Nobel Prize.Here's what you need to know about the winners so far.Half of the prize went to Arthur Ashkin for his work on "optical tweezers."Ashkin, 96, is the oldest laureate ever. A graduate of Columbia and Cornell, he has spent his career researching microwaves, nonlinear optics and laser trapping at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.He developed "optical tweezers" that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them. An "an old dream of science fiction" had been to use the radiation pressure of light to move objects, according to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden.The other half of the physics award went jointly to Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou for their work on laser pulses.Donna Strickland is the first woman in 55 years to have won a physics prize, according to an official with the American Institute of Physics . She works at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Mourou works for Ecole Polytechnique just outside of Paris as well as the University of Michigan.In a revolutionary 1985 article, the pair shared their findings about short and intense laser pulses they developed. The most familiar application of this is on laser eye surgery, but there is a variety of industrial and medical applications.The award went to Jim Allison and Tasuku Honjo for their work in cancer therapy.Allison is the chair of Immunology and executive director of the immunotherapy platform at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Honjo works at Kyoto University in Japan.The pair "established an entirely new principle for cancer therapy" by showing how human immune systems could have the ability to attack cancer cells. The men each found a different way to "put the brakes" on the immune system to allow it to fight cancer, according to the Nobel Foundation's press release . The work of both men led to new cancer treatments.The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded on Wednesday.The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday.The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences will be awarded on Monday, Oct. 8.The literature award will not be given out this year, the Academy announced in May , due to sexual assault allegations against Jean-Claude Arnault.Arnault is a major cultural figure in Sweden who is married to a member of the Swedish Academy and who ran a cultural group closely tied to the academy. He is on trial for two counts of rape, charges which he denies. His wife quit the academy."The Swedish Academy must be able to report what concrete measures are being taken and should get outside help in order to solve their problems. Among other things, they need to reassess compliance with their confidentiality and conflict-of-interest rules," said Lars Heikensten , the director of the Nobel Prize Foundation.Heikensten said that his hope is that the Swedish Academy will be able to choose winners for the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018 and 2019 next year.</s>Arthur Ashkin, a Rumson resident awarded the Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday, discusses his career.

STOCKHOLM — Three scientists from the United States, Canada and France won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work with lasers described as revolutionary and bringing science fiction into reality.

One of them, Arthur Ashkin, 96, of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, entered the Nobel record books by becoming the oldest laureate by six years. Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada is the first woman to have won a Nobel in three years and is only the third to have won for physics.

Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and University of Michigan shares half the prize’s 9-million-kronor, $1.01 million, with Strickland; Ashkin gets the other half.

Ashkin said Tuesday that he had thought his research was worthy of one of the world's most prestigious prizes but figured his time had passed. He had retired in 1990.

► Oct. 1: Houston doctor jointly awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine

 ► Oct. 1: Researcher reflects on cancer breakthrough, and the work still ahead

 ► Oct. 1: Man at center of Nobel Prize sex-abuse scandal convicted of rape

"I had given up," Ashkin said, sitting on a couch in his Rumson, New Jersey, living room. "I had stopped worrying about it."

Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin’s development of “optical tweezers” that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them realized “an old dream of science fiction — using the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects.”

Ashkin had made the discovery in 1987 at age 65. Early on in his career at Bell Labs, he didn't get a raise and was worried he would be fired after his research didn't pan out.

"I was always afraid I wasn’t smart enough," he said. "There were all these geniuses getting Nobel Prizes."

The tweezers are “extremely important for measuring small forces on individual molecules, small objects, and this has been very interesting in biology, to understand how things like muscle tissue work, what are the molecule motors behind the muscle tissue,” said David Haviland of the academy’s Nobel committee.

Ashkin's prize marked the ninth Nobel for work at New Jersey's Bell Labs, when it was home to research and development that supported AT&T during its monopoly.

Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications, including laser eye surgery. The academy said their 1985 article on the technique was “revolutionary.”

Strickland’s award is the first to have gone to a woman in physics since 1963, when it was won by Maria Goeppert-Mayer; the only other one was Marie Curie in 1903.

“Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. And hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe,” Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

Michael Moloney, chief executive of the American Institute of Physics, praised all the laureates.

► May 4: There won't be a 2018 Nobel prize for literature after sex scandal

 ► March 31: Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai visits her Pakistan hometown

“It is also a personal delight to see Dr. Strickland break the 55-year hiatus since a woman has been awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, making this year’s award all the more historic,” he said.

He credited the work of all three with “expanding what is possible at the extremes of time, space and forms of matter.”

On Monday, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel medicine prize for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body’s own immune system.

The Nobel chemistry prize comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced Oct. 8.

Although Ashkin is officially retired, for the past decade he has been working on technology that can lower the cost of solar energy — a project he said has taken on more urgency, not only because of his age, but also because of climate change.

► Dec. 10: Nobel Peace laureates: Nuclear war is 'one tantrum away'

 ► October 2017: British writer Kazuo Ishiguro wins 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature

His quest was interrupted a couple of years ago, when he had a procedure to fix his aorta. But he seems to have recovered. These days he walks down the steps each day to the unfinished basement that has become his laboratory, and he toils away.

He's been eager to get his research published.

"Now that I’m a Nobel Prize winner, they might say, 'Oh he’s a smart guy, we’d better accept his paper,' " Ashkin said. "Before, it was iffy.”

Members of the Nobel Committee for Physics, from left, Olga Botner, Goran K Hansson and Mats Larsson, sit in front of a screen displaying portraits of Arthur Ashkin of the United States, Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada during the announcement of the winners of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on October 2, 2018 in Stockholm.</s>STOCKHOLM — Three scientists from the United States, Canada and France won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for work with lasers described as revolutionary and bringing science fiction into reality.

One of them, Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, entered the Nobel record books by becoming the oldest laureate at age 96. Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Canada is the first woman to have won a Nobel in three years and is only the third to have won for physics.

Frenchman Gerard Mourou of the Ecole Polytechnique and University of Michigan shares have the prize’s 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) with Strickland; Ashkin gets the other half.

Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Ashkin’s development of “optical tweezers” that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them realized “an old dream of science fiction — using the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects.”

The tweezers are “extremely important for measuring small forces on individual molecules, small objects, and this has been very interesting in biology, to understand how things like muscle tissue work, what are the molecule motors behind the muscle tissue,” said David Haviland of the academy’s Nobel committee.

Strickland and Mourou helped develop short and intense laser pulses that have broad industrial and medical applications, including laser eye surgery. The academy said their 1985 article on the technique was “revolutionary.”

Strickland’s award is the first to have gone to a woman in physics since 1963, when it was won by Maria Goeppert-Mayer; the only other one was Marie Curie in 1903.

“Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. And hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate, maybe,” Strickland said in a phone call with the academy after the prize announcement.

Michael Moloney, CEO of the American Institute of Physics, praised all the laureates and said “It is also a personal delight to see Dr. Strickland break the 55-year hiatus since a woman has been awarded a Nobel Prize in physics, making this year’s award all the more historic.”

He credited the work of all three with “expanding what is possible at the extremes of time, space and forms of matter.”

On Monday, American James Allison and Japan’s Tasuku Honjo won the Nobel medicine prize for groundbreaking work in fighting cancer with the body’s own immune system.

The Nobel chemistry prize comes Wednesday, followed by the peace prize on Friday. The economics prize, which is not technically a Nobel, will be announced Oct. 8.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland for their work using lasers to manipulate microscopic objects. Strickland is the first woman to win this award in 55 years.