A Canadian professor ended a 55-year drought for female physicists when she was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for physics on Tuesday, becoming only the third woman to ever win it.
Donna Strickland of the University of Waterloo in Ontario won part of the US $1.01 million prize, which she shared with Gerard Mourou of France and Arthur Ashkin of the United States.
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Swedensa国际传媒檚 Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, said Strickland and Mourou will receive a quarter of the prize each for their work sa国际传媒漡enerating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses,sa国际传媒� which have become a critical part of corrective eye surgeries amongst other uses.
The academy said their 1985 article on the technique sa国际传媒� called chirped pulse amplification or CPA sa国际传媒� was sa国际传媒渞evolutionary.sa国际传媒�
The Guelph-born Strickland, who is an associate professor at Waterloo, told the academy she was left in disbelief when she got the call from Stockholm notifying her of the win, saying she thought it was sa国际传媒渃razy.sa国际传媒�
She became emotional when told she was only the third woman to have won the physics prize sa国际传媒� the first being Marie Curie in 1903, while Maria Goeppert Mayer won in 1963.
sa国际传媒淥bviously, we need to celebrate women physicists because wesa国际传媒檙e out there and hopefully in time it will start to move forward at a faster rate maybe,sa国际传媒� she said. sa国际传媒淚 donsa国际传媒檛 know what to say. Isa国际传媒檓 honoured to be one of those women.sa国际传媒�
The University of Waterloo issued its congratulations to Strickland on Tuesday morning.
sa国际传媒淒r. Donna Strickland, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at #UWaterloo, is one of three scientists to win this yearsa国际传媒檚 Nobel Prize in Physics. She is the first woman to receive this award in 55 years,sa国际传媒� the university said on Twitter.
A 2011 profile on the University of Waterloo web site says Strickland described herself as a sa国际传媒渓aser jocksa国际传媒� who enjoyed the competitive rush, and was working on creating the shortest laser pulse with the biggest punch.
Mourou had been Stricklandsa国际传媒檚 PhD supervisor and said he was thrilled at the win.
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sa国际传媒淚 am very, very happy to share this distinction with my former student Donna Strickland and also to share it with Art Ashkin, for whom I have a lot of respect,sa国际传媒� he said in a video released by Francesa国际传媒檚 Polytechnique school, where he is professor.
sa国际传媒淲ith the technology we have developed, laser power has been increased about a million times, maybe even a billion.sa国际传媒�
Ashkin, of Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, developed sa国际传媒渙ptical tweezerssa国际传媒� that can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them.
Last yearsa国际传媒檚 physics prize went to three Americans who used abstruse theory and ingenious equipment design to detect the faint ripples in the universe called gravitational waves.
Liam Casey , The Canadian Press
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