When employees at Hamamatsu Photonics KK found out their high-precision light sensors had helped win this year's Nobel Prize in physics, they treated it just like any other day at the office.

Far from unusual, it was the fourth time Hamamatsu's sensors had contributed to projects worthy of the most prestigious award in science. The devices — used by Takaaki Kajita in his 2015 prize-winning analysis of subatomic particles called neutrinos — also helped confirm the existence of the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle, in research that led to the 2013 award.

"The next day was the same as usual" after the prize was announced in October, Akira Hiruma, the president of Hamamatsu, said in an interview at the firm's headquarters in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. "There was no special celebration."