Three scientists, John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis, have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for groundbreaking experiments that revealed quantum mechanical behavior in systems large enough to be seen and touched.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work “revealed the bizarre properties of the quantum world can be made concrete in a system big enough to be held in the hand.”
The trio’s experiments in the 1980s showed how quantum mechanical tunneling – a phenomenon that allows particles to pass through barriers – could occur not only at the subatomic level but also in engineered electrical circuits. The discovery laid the foundation for technologies underpinning quantum computing, advanced cryptography, and ultra-sensitive sensors.
“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” said Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
Bridging the Microscopic and the Macroscopic
Quantum mechanics, formulated a century ago by physicists such as Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, describes how matter and energy behave at atomic and subatomic scales. Its principles are counterintuitive: particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously and pass through barriers that would seem impenetrable under classical physics.
The laureates’ experiments demonstrated these effects in superconducting electrical systems. “This year’s Nobel Prize recognizes the pioneers who first showed us that even an electrical circuit can behave as a genuine quantum system,” said Malcolm Connolly, assistant professor of physics at Imperial College London. “Their discoveries of tunneling and energy quantization laid the foundation for today’s superconducting qubits, one of the leading platforms in the global race to build practical quantum computers.”
Jonathan Bagger, CEO of the American Physical Society, explained that the laureates helped make quantum mechanics tangible. “When quantum mechanics was discovered, it was thought to be applicable only to very esoteric situations,” he said. “What these guys showed is how actually, you can elevate quantum mechanics to apply to the observable, to the larger world, to the human scale world.”
In classical terms, quantum tunneling defies common sense. While a single atom can pass through an energy barrier, a phenomenon that underpins nuclear fusion and electron flow in semiconductors, a macroscopic object such as a tennis ball cannot. The laws of classical physics dictate that the ball must bounce back unless it possesses enough energy to overcome the barrier. However, the Nobel-winning experiments revealed that under precise superconducting conditions, even systems large enough to see and touch can exhibit tunneling behavior once thought exclusive to the quantum realm.
Researchers and their Legacy
John Clarke, a British-born physicist at the University of California, Berkeley, said he was “completely stunned” to receive the award. “We had not realized in any way that this might be the basis of a Nobel Prize,” Clarke said at a news conference. Speaking by phone during the announcement, he added, “I’m speaking on my cell phone and I suspect that you are too, and one of the underlying reasons that the cell phone works is because of all this work.”
Michel H. Devoret, a French-born scientist, is a professor at Yale University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where American physicist John M. Martinis also teaches. Martinis previously led Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab, which in 2019 announced it had achieved “quantum supremacy,” demonstrating a quantum computer that performed a calculation beyond the reach of classical supercomputers. Devoret serves as chief scientist of Google Quantum AI.
The three laureates share the Nobel’s 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) prize. French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated Devoret on social media, celebrating his role in advancing a field central to future technology and global innovation.
Quantum Physics and Strategic Technology
Quantum mechanics underpins all modern electronics, but its next-generation applications are reshaping the geopolitical and security landscape. The Nobel Committee noted that the laureates’ discoveries have “provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.”
Quantum computing is viewed as a domain of strategic competition among the United States, China, and Europe. Its potential to revolutionize encryption, intelligence analysis, and materials science could redefine technological power balances. Quantum sensors and secure communication networks also promise new defense and intelligence applications.
“Their experiments were a crucial building block in the fast-developing world of quantum mechanics,” said Bagger. “The results of their findings are just starting to appear in advanced technology and could pave the way for the development of supercharged computing.”
A Century of Quantum Science
The 2025 Nobel Prize coincides with the 100th anniversary of quantum mechanics. The United Nations designated this year as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. “It wasn’t a conscious decision to mark that anniversary with the 2025 prize,” said Ulf Danielsson, a member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, “but it could not have been more fitting.”
Past laureates in the field, Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Niels Bohr, and Erwin Schrödinger, laid the theoretical foundations that Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis have now extended into the practical realm. As Anthony Leggett, the 2003 physics laureate, observed, their work echoes Schrödinger’s thought experiment of a cat that is both alive and dead, showing that quantum mechanics can indeed manifest beyond the microscopic.
The Nobel Prizes, established in the will of Alfred Nobel, remain among the most prestigious honors in global science and diplomacy. The physics award will be presented in Stockholm on December 10, alongside those for medicine, chemistry, literature, and economics, while the Peace Prize will be awarded in Oslo.