RUMSON - Arthur Ashkin, a Bell Labs scientist who invented optical tweezers that can capture living bacteria, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2018, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Tuesday.

It capped a long journey for the 96-year-old Rumson resident, who thought his research was worthy of one of the world's most prestigious prizes, but had figured his time had passed.

"I had given up," Ashkin said, sitting on a couch in his Rumson living room. "I had stopped worrying about it."

See Ashkin talk about the award in the video above.

Ashkin became the oldest Nobel Laureate — by six years — and he shared the award with Gerard Mourou from Ecole Polytechnique in France and the University of Michigan, and Donna Strickland from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Strickland was just the third woman to win the prize in physics.

All were cited for their groundbreaking work in the field of laser physics. They will receive a gold medal and share the cash reward of 9 million kronor, or about $1 million. Ashkin gets half the prize, while the other two split the other half.

It marked the ninth Nobel Prize for work at New Jersey's Bell Labs, when it was home to research and development that supported AT&T during its monopoly.

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Ashkin was awakened at 5 a.m. Tuesday by a phone call from Sweden, telling him he won the Nobel Prize. It turned into a busy morning.

He and his wife, Aline, fielded phone calls from family, colleagues, journalists and Nobel committee members trying to arrange a trip to Stockholm in December to pick up the award.

On the shelf were books about Albert Einstein. In their basement was a laser, a microscope and a work bench Ashkin took from Bell Labs, along with prototypes of his newest project to make solar energy affordable.

Ashkin was born in Brooklyn and grew up with an affinity for physics, drawn by a need to figure out how things work. He went to Columbia University in New York for his bachelor's degree and got his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He enlisted in the Army, where he worked on radar.

He eventually was recruited by a former Army colleague to work at Bell Labs. And he moved to Rumson with his wife and three children in 1967 after he was transferred to Bell Labs' Holmdel site.

Aline taught chemistry at Holmdel High School for 14 years.

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Ashkin found Bell Labs to be a pressure cooker. Early on, he didn't get a raise and was worried he would be fired after his research didn't pan out. And later he would watch as colleagues celebrated Nobel Prizes for their own breakthroughs, earning the building the reputation of being an idea factory.

"I liked it after I knew I had a job," he said. "But I was always afraid I wasn’t smart enough. There were all these geniuses getting Nobel Prizes."

In 1987, at the age of 65, Ashkin discovered a way to use laser light to trap live things like cells, bacteria and viruses without harming them. It allowed scientists to study them, opening doors to medical research.

"This new tool allowed Ashkin to realize an old dream of science fiction — using the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects," the Nobel Prize committee said. "He succeeded in getting laser light to push small particles towards the center of the beam and to hold them there."

He won accolades, but not the most renowned one, the Nobel. One year, Aline said, they heard he was on the short list, but it didn't happen. Meanwhile, others he worked with, including former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, became Nobel Laureates.

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Ashkin retired in the early '90's, and as he got older, he figured his prospects for a Nobel Prize were fading away.

"He wanted it, yeah," Aline Ashkin said. "He was disappointed he didn’t get it. But he’s found other things to interest him."

For the past decade, Ashkin has been working on technology that can lower the cost of solar energy — a project he says has taken on more urgency, not only because of his age, but also because of climate change.

His quest was interrupted a couple of years ago, when he had a procedure to fix his aorta. But he seems to have recovered. These days he walks down the steps each day to the unfinished basement that has become his laboratory, and he toils away.

He's been anxious to get his research published.

"Now that I’m a Nobel Prize winner, they might say, 'Oh he’s a smart guy, we’d better accept his paper,'" Ashkin said. "Before, it was iffy.”

Michael L. Diamond; @mdiamondapp; 732-643-4038; mdiamond@gannettnj.com