Three scientists have won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Physics for their research into quantum physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced yesterday.
US physicists, Prof Robert Laughlin and Prof Daniel Tsui, and Prof Horst Stormer of Germany, were jointly awarded the £832,105 prize for discovering that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of particles, with charges that are fractions of electron charges.
The discovery, in a field of particle physics which has already yielded a rich crop of Nobel prizes, is significant for the miniaturisation of electronic products. As these get ever smaller, the atoms on the chips play a greater role, making the products less reliable.
"This discovery could be a breakthrough in the barrier that limits the smallness of computers, televisions and mobile phones," Prof Anders Barany, associate professor of theoretical atomic physics at Stockholm University, said. Prof Stormer (49), born in Frankfurt and now a professor at Columbia University, and Prof Tsui (59), born in Henan, China, but now a US citizen and professor at Princeton University, made the discovery in 1982 in an experiment using extremely powerful magnetic fields and low temperatures. Within a year Prof Laughlin (48), a professor at Stanford University, had explained their results.
The academy also announced that two scientists, Prof John Pople of Britain and Prof Walter Kohn of the US, have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work on how bonds between the atoms in molecules function.
"The laureates have each made pioneering contributions in developing methods that can be used for theoretical studies of the properties of molecules and the chemical processes in which they are involved," the Nobel jury said.
Their work was key to "an enormous theoretical and computational development and the consequences are revolutionising the whole of chemistry". Prof Pople (73), and Austrianborn Prof Kohn (75), will be presented with the £832,105 prize in Stockholm on December 10th.
Prof Pople works in the department of chemistry at Northwestern University, Illinois, and Prof Kohn in the department of physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara, California.