American Jew, 96, becomes oldest Nobel Prize winner

“I’m very old and had given up worrying about things like Nobel Prizes,” said the 96-year-old.

He said that he was pleasantly surprised when he received the 5am call from Sweden. Dr Ashkin will share half of the prize money of 9 million krona (£770,767.63) with physicists Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada, who have developed a way to generate high-intensity, ultra-short bursts of laser light.

The three winning scientists have paved the way for laser eye surgery to improve vision and manipulate cells.

Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, Robbert Dijkgraaf, said their collective work shows “fundamental breakthroughs in physics that led to tools that are now being used all over science”.

Sweden’s Royal Academy of Sciences said Ashkin’s tweezers - which can grab tiny particles such as viruses without damaging them - helped to achieve “an old dream of science fiction.”

Optical tweezers “created entirely new opportunities for observing and controlling the machinery of life,” the Nobel committee said.

“You see the thing work and your heart stops. The hairs stand up on the back of your neck,” said David Grier of New York University, who uses optical tweezers in his research.

Dr Ashkin told the committee that he may not be able to give any interviews because he was “very busy” on his latest scientific paper.