"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the #NobelPrize in Physics 2018 'for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics' with one half to Arthur Ashkin and the other half jointly to Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland," the academy said on Twitter.
Mourou and Strickland's work allowed to open up new areas of research and led to broad industrial and medical applications, including eye surgery performed with ultra-sharp laser beams, it added.
Ashkin invented "optical tweezers" that allow to grab, turn, cut, push and pull microorganisms with light beams, without damaging them. This creates new opportunities for studying biological processes, the academy explained.
The day before, American immunologist James Allison and Japanese immunologist Tasuku Honjo were awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries in cancer therapy.