Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, British-born Fraser Stoddart and Dutch scientist Bernard “Ben” Feringa share the 8 million kronor ($930,000) prize for the “design and synthesis of molecular machines,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. [12]

The three share the 8 million kronor ($930,000) prize for the “design and synthesis” of molecular machines with controllable movements, which can perform a task when energy is added, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. The academy said molecular machines “will most likely be used in the development of things such as new materials, sensors and energy storage systems.”

Sauvage, 71, is professor emeritus at the University of Strasbourg and director of research emeritus at France’s National Center for Scientific Research. Jean-Pierre Sauvage, 71, of the University of Strasbourg in France, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart, 74, a Scottish born researcher based at Northwestern University in the U.S. each split one half of this year’s chemistry prize, worth about $1.2-million. READ MORE: Scotland’s 10 Nobel prize winners

Feringa, 65, is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Image copyright University of Groningen Image caption Innovations have included this nano car, produced by Bernard Feringa's team

In 1999, Prof Feringa led the first research to produce a molecular motor that continually spins in the same direction. Yesterday, Scottish-born scientists David Thouless and Michael Kosterlitz were awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in physics, for work that “revealed the secrets of exotic matter”. The prizes are named after Swedish scientist and inventor Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901 for achievements in science, literature and peace. “I have won many prizes, but the Nobel Prize is something very special, it’s the most prestigious prize, the one most scientists don’t even dare to dream of in their wildest dreams,” he said. Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, wanted his awards to honor achievements that delivered the “greatest benefit to mankind.”

Samuel Petrequin in Paris and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Scotsman Sir Fraser Stoddart, and Dutchman Ben Feringa win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their research into nanotechnology.