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Members of the Nobel Physics Committee sit in front of a screen presenting the portraits of this year's winners: Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland.
Credit: Hanna Franzen / AFP / Getty Images
Three scientists received this morning the Nobel Prize in Physics for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics.
Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou received half the prize, the other half going to Arthur Ashkin. Strickland is only the third woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics. (The other two were Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963.)
"We have to celebrate women physicists because they're out there … I'm honored to be one of those women," Strickland said, according to the Nobel Prize Foundation.
As many of the laureates have said in the past, when she received the call this morning to talk to her about the award, she was incredulous. "First of all, you have to think that it's crazy, so it's my first thought and you're still wondering if that's true," Strickland said at a press conference. a press conference held this morning at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Sweden.
Ashkin, of Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, is honored for his invention of the optical clamp; These laser beam fingers can capture living cells, including particles, atoms, and viruses. "This new tool has allowed Ashkin to realize an old sci-fi dream: using light radiation pressure to move physical objects," said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in a statement. In 1987, he used tweezers to grab living bacteria without hurting them, according to the Academy's release.
The achievements of Strickland, from the University of Waterloo in Canada, and Morou, from the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau, France, have led to the creation of the world's shortest and most intense laser pulses. . (Morou is also a professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)
The duo invented what is known as pulsed pulse amplification, a process in which laser pulses are stretched over time, amplified and then compressed. When a pulse is compressed in time, becoming shorter, the same amount of light is packaged in a tiny space and the intensity of the impulse soars.
Asked this morning about the breakthrough discovery, Strickland said, "You have to think outside the box to stretch first and then expand, and most people amplify and simply try to compress what they've amplified. "
This technique is used in millions of laser eye surgeries each year, according to the Academy's release.
Askkin will receive half the Nobel Prize of 9 million crowns (1.01 million dollars), while Mourou and Strickland will share the other half.
Original article on Science live.
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