Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland awarded Nobel Physics Prize for laser researchOct 2 (AZINS) Scientists Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics for breakthroughs in the field of lasers used for surgery as well as scientific study, the award-giving body said.

American Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the United States won half of the prize while Frenchman Mourou, who also has U.S. citizenship, and Canadian Strickland shared the other half. Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, Canada, becomes only the third woman to win a Nobel prize for physics. "The inventions being honoured this year have revolutionised laser physics," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said on awarding the nine million Swedish crown ($1 million) prize.

"Advanced precision instruments are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications," it said in a statement. Ashkin invented optical "tweezers" that could grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells while Mourou and Strickland separately created the shortest and most powerful laser pulses ever. These became the standard for high-intensity lasers, for example used in millions of corrective eye surgeries per year.

The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish business tycoon Alfred Nobel, whose discovery of dynamite generated a  vast fortune used to fund the prize. However, for the first time in decades no Nobel Prize for literature will be given this year after a scandal over sexual misconduct allegations saw a string of members leave the board of the Swedish Academy that awards it.

Yesterday, American James Allison and Japanese Tasuku Honjo won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to new approaches in harnessing the immune system to fight cancer, the award-giving body said.

Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were created in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel and have been awarded since 1901. The literature prize will not be handed out this year after the awarding body was hit by a sexual misconduct scandal. Both laureates studied proteins that prevent the body and its main immune cells, known as T-cells, from attacking tumour cells effectively.

Allison, professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, studied a protein that functions as a brake on the immune system and realised the potential for unleashing immune cells to attack tumours if the brake could be released. Honjo, professor at Kyoto University since 1984, separately discovered a second protein on immune cells and revealed that it too operated as a brake, but with a different mechanism. "The seminal discoveries by the two Laureates constitute a landmark in our fight against cancer," the institute said.