Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded for Quantum Tunnelling

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” Their mid-1980s experiments used a chip-based superconducting Josephson-junction circuit to show that a hand-sized device could tunnel between states and absorb and emit energy in discrete quanta, demonstrating quantum effects on a macroscopic scale. The work, conducted at institutions including UC Berkeley, Yale and UC Santa Barbara, helped lay the foundations for superconducting quantum technologies used in modern quantum computers and sensors. The Nobel jury said the experiments made the “bizarre properties of the quantum world” concrete and measurable in a visible system. The laureates will share the prize sum of 11 million Swedish kronor and will be formally awarded at the December 10 ceremony in Stockholm.