The 'light tools' take the Nobel Prize for Physics 2018
The 'light tools' take the Nobel Prize for Physics 2018
"Innovative inventions in the field of laser physics" have earned researchers Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the United States, Gérard Mourou of the Polytechnic School of France and the University of Michigan (USA) and Donna Strickland of The University of Waterloo in Canada awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics 2018, as announced today by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Extremely small objects and incredibly fast processes can be observed today thanks to the works and inventions of the winners. The advanced and precise light instruments they have developed are opening unexplored research areas and a multitude of industrial and medical applications.
Arthur Ashkin (New York, 1922) invented optical tweezers capable of holding particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells with their 'fingers' of lasers. This new tool allowed to achieve an old dream of science fiction: to use the pressure of light to move physical objects. The researcher managed, through laser light, to push tiny particles towards the center of the beam and keep them there. The optical tweezers had just been invented.
Another important breakthrough came in 1987, when Ashkin used these tweezers to capture live bacteria without damaging them. Immediately began to study biological systems with this tool, which today is widely used to investigate the machinery of life.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 is shared by the American Arthur Ashkin (1/2 of the prize), the French Gérard Mourou (1/4) and the Canadian Donna Strickland (1/4) for their revolutionary advances in laser physics. (Photo: Bell Labs / École Polytechnique / University of Waterloo)
On the other hand, Gérard Mourou (Albertville-France, 1944) and Donna Strickland (Guelph-Canada, 1959) jointly receive half the prize because they paved the way to generate the shortest and most intense laser pulses achieved by humanity. The study was presented in 1985 in a revolutionary article, which also served as the basis for Strickland's doctoral thesis.
Using an ingenious approach, they managed to create high intensity and ultra-short laser pulses without destroying the amplifier material. First they 'stretched' the pulses over time to reduce their maximum power, then amplified them and finally compressed them. When a laser pulse is compressed and shortened in this way, more light is packed in the same small space, greatly increasing its intensity.
Strickland and Mourou's new technique, called chirped pulse amplification (CPA), soon became a standard for the high-intensity lasers that would develop later. Among its uses are the millions of corrective eye surgeries that are performed each year with this high-precision laser technology.
The full potential and the myriad applications that light tools could provide have not yet been explored. Even so, already they allow to investigate in the microworld to, following the spirit of Alfred Nobel, to contribute a benefit to the humanity.
Of the nine million Swedish crowns with which the Nobel Prize is endowed, Arthur Ashkin will receive half and the rest will be shared by Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland in equal parts.
Strickland is the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in history. The first was Marie Curie in 1903; and the second, Maria Goeppert-Mayer in the distant year 1963. That is to say, it has been 55 years since this prestigious award fell on a woman for the last time. (Source: SINC)
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