The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded for discoveries about strange forms of matter.

Three Britons, David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, will share the 8m kronor (£727,000) prize.

They were named at a press conference in Sweden, and join a prestigious list of 200 other Physics laureates recognised since 1901.

The Nobel Committee said this year’s laureates had “opened the door on an unknown world”.

In this mysterious realm, matter can exist in strange states.

Their discoveries had helped scientists designing new materials.

Prof Haldane commented: “I was very surprised and very gratified.”

He said the work had been carried out a long time ago, but that its applications were only now starting to be seen.

Previous winners of the Nobel Prize in physics

2015 – Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald were awarded the prize the discovery that neutrinos switch between different “flavours”.

2014 – Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura won the physics Nobel for developing the first blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

2013 – Francois Englert and Peter Higgs shared the spoils for formulating the theory of the Higgs boson particle.

2012 – Serge Haroche and David J Wineland were awarded the prize for their work with light and matter.

2011 – The discovery that the expansion of the Universe was accelerating earned Saul Perlmutter, Brian P Schmidt and Adam Riess the physics prize.

2010 – Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the prize for their discovery of the “wonder material” graphene.

2009 – Charles Kuen Kao won the physics Nobel for helping to develop fibre optic cables.