Arthur Ashkin, a physicist who was awarded a 2018 Nobel Prize for figuring out how to harness the power of light to trip microscopic objects for closer study, calling his invention optical tweezers, died Sept. 21, at his home in Rumson, NJ. He was 98.

The Nobel Committee wrote, Dr. Ashkin “has invented optical tweezers that grab particles, atoms, molecules, and living cells with their laser beam fingers.” Trapping biological material proved to have groundbreaking practical applications in research and in understanding the behavior of the basic building blocks of life, like DNA and other biological systems. Today, optical tweezers are widely manufactured and sold to researchers.