STOCKHOLM — Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of quasicrystals, a mosaic-like chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman’s discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. It initially faced strong objections from the scientific community, and even got him kicked out of his research group in the United States.

Since then, quasicrystals have been produced in laboratories and a Swedish company found them in one of the most durable kinds of steel, which is now used in products such as razor blades and thin needles made specifically for eye surgery, the citation said.

Scientists are also experimenting with using quasicrystals in coatings for frying pans, heat insulation in engines, and in light-emitting devices, or LEDs.

“It feels wonderful,” Shechtman, a 70-year-old distinguished professor at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, said.

Shechtman, who also is professor of materials science and engineering at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, will receive a $1.5 million award at a Dec. 10 ceremony in Stockholm.