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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics to quantum physicists John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit."
Quantum mechanics is the study of the behaviour of matter and light on the atomic and subatomic scales. This field of physics is behind some of today's most transformative technologies, including supercomputers and smartphones. Through a series of groundbreaking experiments in the mid-1980s using electrical circuits, the laureates observed quantum mechanical phenomena called quantum tunnelling and quantization of energy levels. The trio proved the existence of these quantum phenomena on a system visible to the human eye.
Quantum tunnelling occurs when a particle moves directly through an otherwise impassable barrier to appear on the other side, even if it lacks sufficient energy to do so. Quantization of energy refers to a property of subatomic particles, whereby they can gain or lose energy only in fixed, discrete amounts. While the quantum tunnelling effect diminishes as particles assemble, the laureates' work demonstrated that quantum tunnelling can occur in a macroscopic system that is visible to the eye, larger than previously thought possible. Their work also showed that the energy of this system is quantized. These discoveries indicate that quantum mechanics can influence everyday objects under certain conditions.
The laureates' work became the basis for the development of quantum technology, including quantum computers used by technology companies like Google and IBM. Quantum computers rely on the principles of quantum mechanics to make complex calculations, predict outcomes and perform analyses that may be out of reach for a traditional computer.
Clarke conducted his research at the University of California-Berkeley, using this technology to build equipment for the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment to help detect dark matter. Martinis was a researcher at the University of California-Santa Barbara, though he later worked at the Google Quantum A.I. lab from 2014-2020 and cofounded quantum computing company Qolab in 2022. Devoret, who conducted his research at Yale University and the University of California-Santa Barbara, is currently the Chief Scientist at Google's Quantum A.I. lab.
The Nobel Prize includes a prize of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.5 million Canadian dollars) to be shared among the three laureates. The prize will be presented on December 10, 2025, at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden.
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