The Nobel Prize in Physics of 2025 was awarded to the British, French and American scientists for innovative experiments that have laid the path to quantum technologies of the next generation.
John Clark, a British physicist from the University of California in Berkeley, Michelle Devor, a French physicist from Yale University, and John Martinis from the University of California at Santa Barbara divided a prize of 11 million Swedish crowns (about 871,400 pounds), declared the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.
The trio conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated that the bizarre properties of the quantum world can be expressed in measurable effects in macroscopic electrical circuits. This included a demonstration that the so -called quantum tunneling – the equivalent of passing the ball through a brick wall – can occur in superconducting electrical circuits.
Scientists were awarded a reward for “opening a macroscopic quantum -mechanical tunneling and energy quantification in an electric circuit”, which paved the way to the development of quantum cryptography and quantum computers.
Speaking at a press conference, Professor Clark, who learned about the reward only by phone, said that it never occurred to him, that this breakthrough could be awarded the Nobel Prize. He said: “To put it mildly, it was a surprise of my whole life. I was completely stunned.”
“This is what … led to the development of a quantum computer,” Clark added, in whose laboratory in Berkeley experiments took place in the 1980s. “It is recognized that our discovery is largely based on this.”
Quantum theory was originally developed at the beginning of the 20th century to explain the physics of the atomic world, an invisible world that exists on a scale, too small to be observed in a microscope. In the quantum world, a particle that enters the energy pit can “lay a tunnel” on the way to freedom, even if it does not have enough energy to get out.
Working in the Clark laboratory in Berkeley, where Devoret joined as post -Doc, and Martinis as a graduate student, the team began to investigate whether such phenomena can occur on a macroscopic scale in superconductors. In superconductors, the current flows without resistance, which means that electrons should behave synchronously.
This means that theoretically, electrons in the superconductor can be considered as one giant particle filling the entire chain, but it was not known whether this would lead to the fact that they would have a quantum behavior observed in particles at the atomic level.
The experiments were concentrated on a component known as the Josephson transition in which two superconductors are connected together with a thin insulating barrier between them. According to classical physics, two sides of the compounds are isolated from each other. However, scientists found that the entire system was able to tunnel through the Josephsovsky transition, causing the appearance of tension on the barrier.
Studying how much time it took to occur a jump in tension, they also showed that this macroscopic tunneling is subordinated to the same rules based on the probability that a well -known quantum phenomenon, such as the decay of radioactive nuclei.
“This work laid the foundation for the idea that we can gain control over the quantum world,” said Dr. Malcolm Connolly, who explores quantum behavior of materials at the Imperial College of London. “Their opening of tunneling and energy quanties laid the foundation for today's superconducting cubes, one of the leading platforms in the global race to create practical quantum computers.”
Superfigure schemes are one of the methods studied in attempts to create a future quantum computer, and in 2014 Martinis and his team were hired by Google to create the first useful quantum computer (he left Gogle in 2020).
“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate that the centenary quantum mechanics constantly present new surprises,” said Olla Ericksson, chairman of the Nobel Physics Committee. “It is also extremely useful because quantum mechanics is the basis of all digital technologies.”
