Pictures of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics laureates Serge Haroche (L) of France and David Wineland of the US are displayed on a screen during a news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm, October 9, 2012.??[Photo/Agencies]

STOCKHOLM - France's Serge Haroche and US researcher David J. Wineland shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics, announced Staffan Normark, Permanent Secretary of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on Tuesday.

Haroche and Wineland got the awards "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems", said Normark.

They 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, according to a statement from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.