3 Academics Share Nobel Prize in Physics

"Three academics affiliated with U.S. universities have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday morning. British physicist John Clarke, a professor of experimental physics at the University of California, Berkeley; French physicist Michel Devoret, professor emeritus of applied physics at Yale"

"and a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and John Martinis, also a physics professor at UCSB, will share the nearly $1.2 million prize. They won for performing a series of experiments using an electronic circuit made of superconductors, which can conduct a current with no electrical resistance, demonstrating "that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale," according to the announcement."

Three academics affiliated with U.S. universities were awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit. The laureates are John Clarke (University of California, Berkeley), Michel Devoret (Yale emeritus; University of California, Santa Barbara), and John Martinis (University of California, Santa Barbara). They performed experiments with an electronic circuit made of superconductors that conduct current with zero electrical resistance. Their experiments demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can manifest on a macroscopic scale. The prize sum is nearly $1.2 million to be shared among the three. Nobel Committee chair Olle Eriksson emphasized quantum mechanics' continuing surprises and its foundational role in digital technology.

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