Arthur Ashkin

The son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Ashkin spent his career at Bell Labs, where in 1986 he realized that the radiation pressure of a focused laser beam could grab and hold tiny particles. His invention of optical tweezers let researchers trap and move atoms, viruses and living cells with a beam of light, without touching or damaging them. This became an essential tool in biology and physics, and at age 96 he became the oldest Nobel laureate at the time, sharing the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics.