The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Arthur Ashkin, and the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland "for their groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics."

American physicist Ashkin has been awarded the Nobel Prize for optical tweezers and their application to biological systems, while French physicist Mourou and Canadian physicist Strickland have been awarded the prize for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.

Strickland is the first woman in 55 years to be awarded the prize, while 96-year-old Ashkin, becomes the oldest Nobel Laureate.

Marie Curie was the first-ever woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, recognized for her co-discovery of radiation, followed by Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 for discoveries about nuclear structure.

“We need to celebrate women physicists because we're out there. I'm honoured to be one of those women,” Strickland said in a news conference following the announcement in Stockholm.

Speaking about being the third woman to ever win the award, she said she thought there might have been more, adding: “Hopefully in time it will start to move forward at a faster rate.”

The announcement comes one day after a senior scientist with Cern, the academic home to a number of Nobel prize winners, was suspended for saying that physics was invented and built by men.

In announcing the award, the Royal Swedish Academy said both inventions “revolutionized laser physics.”

“Advanced precision instruments are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications,” The Nobel Prize shared in a post on Twitter.

Strickland and Mourou's development of very short and intense laser pulses, known as “chirped pulse amplification,” have made it possible to cut or drill holes in materials and living matter incredibly precisely. The technology they pioneered has led to corrective eye operations for millions of people.

While Ashkin's optical tweezers may sound stranger than science fiction, they make it possible for scientists to hold, observe, and move tiny objects with “laser beam fingers.” That means laboratories can examine and manipulate viruses, bacteria, and other living cells without damaging them.

According to the Academy, Ashkin was so busy with his latest scientific paper that he might not be available for interviews.

Each of the six Nobel prizes come with an award of 9 million Swedish kronor (roughly $1 million), which can be shared by as many as three recipients.

Alfred Nobel created five prizes in his 1895 will for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. A sixth prize in economics was created, in Nobel's memory, by Sweden's central bank in 1968.