The 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics has been jointly awarded to Arthur Ashkin from the US, Gérard Mourou from France and Donna Strickland from Canada for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics.
The Nobel committee said the inventions revolutionised laser physics, by making extremely small objects and incredibly fast processes appear in a new light.
The developments have led to advanced precision instruments that are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications, it added.
Professor Strickland is only the third woman in history to receive a Nobel Prize for Physics.
Dr Ashkin, who did his work at Bell Labs in New Jersey, invented "optical tweezers" that capture objects in light and applied the concept to biological systems.
The tweezers is capable of grabbing particles, atoms and molecules with their laser beam fingers.
In 1987 he discovered the device could be used to examine and manipulate living bacteria, and later viruses and other living cells, without damaging them.
This has provided new opportunities for observing and controlling such objects, and made it possible to observe, turn, cut, push and pull with light.
The technique is now used in many labs to carry out research into biological processes, such as proteins, molecular motors, DNA or the inner life of cells.
The Nobel committee said that when it informed 96-year-old Dr Ashkin of the news, he said he may not be able to do interviews today because he is very busy with his latest research paper.
Dr Mourou, now based at the Ecole Polytechnique in France and University of Michigan, and Prof Strickland who works at the University of Waterloo in Canada, conducted research at the University of Rochester in the US that led to the development of the shortest and most intense laser pulses created by humankind.
"First of all, you have to think it is crazy!" said Professor Strickland, on hearing the news.
The technique, called chirped pulse amplification or CPA, opened up new areas of research and led to broad industrial and medical applications.
In essence it involves taking a short laser pulse, stretching it in time to reduce the peak power, amplifying it and squeezing it together again.
The compression of the pulse of light to make it shorter means there is then more light packed into the same tiny space, making the intensity of the pulse increase dramatically.
These ultra-sharp laser beams make it possible to cut or drill holes in various materials extremely precisely.
They are also used to cut living matter and each year millions of eye operations are performed around the world with the sharpest of laser beams.
Many more areas of potential application have yet to be completely explored.
The winners share the prize fund of almost €900,000, with Dr Ashkin receiving half and the others splitting the rest between them.
Watch the moment the 2018 #NobelPrize in Physics is announced.
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018
Presented by Göran K. Hansson, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. pic.twitter.com/EukMJmGrGo
