French, US scientists share Nobel Prize in Physics

French scientist Serge Haroche and David J Wineland of the US will receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems.

''Serge Haroche and David J Wineland have independently invented and developed methods for measuring and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature, in ways that were previously thought unattainable,'' the Nobel Prize committee said in a release.

Their research has opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them, it said.

Through their ingenious laboratory methods Haroche and Wineland together with their research groups have managed to measure and control very fragile quantum states, which were previously thought inaccessible for direct observation. The new methods allow them to examine, control and count the particles, it added.

While David Wineland traps electrically charged atoms, or ions, controlling and measuring them with light, or photons, Serge Haroche takes the opposite approach - he controls and measures trapped photons, or particles of light, by sending atoms through a trap.

Their ground-breaking methods have enabled this field of research to take the very first steps towards building a new type of super fast computer based on quantum physics, the release said.