Nobel Prize in physics awarded to three researchers for two advances in lasers

Washington, October 2: Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize in Physics. They are Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland. Dr Ashkin is from the US, Dr Mourou is French and Dr Strickland is of Canada.

 

The three researchers have been awarded for inventions in the field of laser physics which have paved the way for advanced precision instruments used in industry and medicine.

Dr Ashkin developed a laser technique described as optical tweezers, which is used to study biological systems. Dr Mourou and Strickland developed a way of generating high intensity and very short laser pulses.

Donna Strickland is only the third female physics laureate and the first woman in 55 years to win the prize. Donna Strickland, a Canadian physicist was awarded the prize jointly with Gérard Mourou, from France, for their work on generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses. They shared the prize with an American, Arthur Ashkin, who at 96 becomes the oldest Nobel Laureate.

Marie Curie was the first-ever woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, recognized for her co-discovery of radiation, followed by Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 for discoveries about nuclear structure.

"We need to celebrate women physicists because we're out there. I'm honored to be one of those women," Strickland said in a news conference following the announcement in Stockholm.

Speaking about being the third woman to ever win the award, she said she thought there might have been more, adding: "Hopefully in time it will start to move forward at a faster rate."

The announcement comes one day after a senior scientist with Cern, the academic home to a number of Nobel prize winners, was suspended for saying that physics was invented and built by men.