Nobel Prize in Physics Goes To...

This year’s Nobel Prize for physics honours those whose inventions revolutionised laser physics.

And the winners for this year’s Nobel Prize in physics are Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland.

Ashkin has been awarded “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.” Mourou and Strickland have been awarded “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.”

Nobel Laureate Arthur Ashkin has been awarded the #NobelPrize in Physics “for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.”

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018

Nobel Laureates Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland have been awarded the #NobelPrize in Physics “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.”

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018

This year’s #NobelPrize 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. pic.twitter.com/RZp78piSRF

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018

Arthur Ashkin, awarded the 2018 #NobelPrize, had a dream: imagine if beams of light could be put to work and made to move objects. He realised his dream by creating a light trap, which became known as optical tweezers. pic.twitter.com/6W6juINq5f

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018

Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland – this year’s #NobelPrize recipients – 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. pic.twitter.com/KQYcbmW0tl

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018

The Nobel Prize for physics honours researchers for discoveries in phenomena as enormous as The Big Bang and as tiny as single particles of light. The 9-million-kronor ($1.01 million) prize is decided by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Last year’s physics prize went to three Americans who used abstruse theory and ingenious equipment design to detect the faint ripples in the universe called gravitational waves.

This Year’s Winners – So Far

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 8 October.