Arthur Ashkin

Arthur Ashkin was an American physicist and Nobel Laureate best known for inventing “optical tweezers,” a revolutionary tool that uses the pressure of laser light to manipulate microscopic particles, including atoms, viruses, and living cells. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 2, 1922, Ashkin was the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. His father, Isadore Ashkenazi, escaped Tsarist Russia in 1910 using a forged identity and settled in the U.S., where the family name was changed to Ashkin. His mother, Anna Fishman, came to the U.S. as a young child from what is now Poland.

Ashkin grew up during the Great Depression and was educated in Brooklyn’s public schools. He showed an early fascination with science and light, particularly after encountering a Crookes radiometer in a store window. He earned his undergraduate degree in physics from Columbia University and completed his doctorate in nuclear physics at Cornell University under the G.I. Bill. During World War II, he worked on radar technology at Columbia’s Radiation Lab.

After completing his Ph.D., Ashkin joined Bell Labs, where he shifted from nuclear to laser physics to avoid competing with his older brother Julius Ashkin. This noted physicist had worked on the Manhattan Project. At Bell Labs in the 1960s, Ashkin began exploring how light could exert mechanical force on matter—a concept that would become central to his later breakthroughs. Internal reviewers initially rejected his pioneering 1970 paper on optical trapping, but it became one of the most cited atomic physics papers of the 20th century after publication.

Ashkin’s crowning achievement came in 1983 when he developed the single-beam optical tweezer, a breakthrough that opened new possibilities for biological and atomic research. In recognition of this work, Ashkin was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics at 96—the oldest recipient in Nobel history. Though many believed he should have shared the 1997 Nobel for atom trapping, his contribution was formally acknowledged decades later.

A lifelong inventor and researcher, Ashkin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering and was a fellow of multiple scientific societies. He received numerous awards, including the Harvey Prize and the Rank Prize.

Ashkin and his wife, Aline, met at Cornell and were married for 65 years. They raised three children, including Michael Ashkin, a professor at Cornell, and enjoyed an active life together in New Jersey. Arthur Ashkin passed away on September 21, 2020, leaving behind a legacy of scientific discovery and a testament to the enduring contributions of Jewish-American scientists.

Source: Erik Gregersen, “Arthur Ashkin,” Britannica.
“Arthur Ashkin Biographical,” The Nobel Prize.
David Nutt, “Nobel-winning physicist Arthur Ashkin, Ph.D. ’52, dies at 98,” Cornell University, (October 1, 2020).

Photo: Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.