Three US-based scientists win Nobel Prize in physics for work on quantum mechanics

Three scientists from American universities won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on quantum mechanics.

The winners are John Clarke, a UK-born physicist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Michel H. Devoret, who is from France and is now a professor emeritus of applied physics at Yale University, and John M. Martinis, an American professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Quantum mechanics is the science of how matter and light behave on the atomic and subatomic scale, and is used to power everything from smartphones and computers to lasers and MRI scanners.

Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis earned the award for their discoveries on “macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit,” according to the Nobel Prize.

The trio conducted experiments in the 1980s that showed how quantum’s properties can be made tangible, using an electrical system built from superconductors.

The team was able to control and explore what happened when they passed a current through the system, showing that it could “tunnel from one state to another, as if it were passing straight through a wall,” the Nobel Prize said.

The system also absorbed and emitted energy in specifically sized doses, in line with quantum mechanics predictions.

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises,” said Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

“It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” Eriksson added.

Clarke spoke with journalists on a call during the announcement in Sweden. He said he was “completely stunned” by the award and that he had not anticipated that the work would one day lead to a Nobel Prize.

Previous Nobel Prizes in Physics

The Nobel Prizes were created by the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896. It comes with a cash award of 11 million Swedish kroner, which is more than €997,000.

From 1901 to 2024, 118 Nobel Prizes were awarded in physics. Five of the 227 physics winners have been women, including Marie Curie in 1903.

Last year’s physics award went to physicist John Hopfield and computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who is considered one of the godfathers of artificial intelligence (AI).

Their discoveries in the 1980s enabled machine learning with artificial neural networks and paved the way for modern breakthroughs in AI.

The rest of the 2025 Nobel Prizes, awarded for advancements in chemistry, literature, and toward peace, will be announced throughout the week. The economics prize will be granted on 13 October.

The Nobel laureates will receive their prizes at an awards ceremony in Sweden in December.