Arthur Ashkin won half of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.
Optical tweezers use a tightly focused laser beam to trap and move tiny particles. The light’s electric field creates forces that can hold microscopic objects near the beam’s focus. Ashkin developed the technique in the 1970s and later used it to manipulate biological particles without physically touching them.
The 2018 Physics prize was shared with Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland, who received the other half jointly for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics. Optical tweezers are now used to study viruses, bacteria, organelles, DNA and molecular motors. Ashkin’s work was especially important because it extended laser manipulation from small inorganic particles to living cells.