PARIS, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday congratulated scientist Gerard Mourou, professor at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, for his winning of the Nobel Prize in physics.

"We are proud of Gerard Mourou, a professor at Ecole Polytechnique, who...is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on lasers," Macron said.

The prestigious award "highlights French fundamental research and its applications," he tweeted.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences declared that the 2018 Nobel Prize in physics is "for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics" with one half to Arthur Ashkin and the other half jointly to Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland.

Mourou, 74, is a pioneer in electrical engineering and lasers. He is currently professor and member of Haut College at the Ecole Polytechnique and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan.