The global scientific community is recognizing the foundational work of John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis, who have been jointly awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. The accolade honors their pioneering research into macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and the precise quantization of energy within electrical circuits. Their seminal investigations, conducted primarily in the mid-1980s, provided crucial empirical evidence demonstrating how the rules of quantum mechanics could be observed and harnessed in significantly larger, superconducting systems. This achievement marked a pivotal moment where the microscopic realm began to yield its secrets to macro-scale engineering.
The laureates represent distinguished institutions across the United States. John Clarke, born in 1942, is an 83-year-old Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and a British physicist. Michel H. Devoret, 72, is a French physicist who holds professorships at Yale University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, and serves as Chief Scientist at Google Quantum AI. Completing the trio is John M. Martinis, 67, an American physicist and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The trio conducted their prize-winning experiments at UC Berkeley, where Devoret was a postdoctoral fellow and Martinis was a graduate student working under Clarke.
Their collaborative experimental setup utilized superconducting circuits, allowing researchers to witness electrons traversing energy barriers—the process known as tunneling—in a manner that clearly exhibited quantum mechanical behavior on a scale far removed from single atoms. This work illuminated a pathway for understanding the fundamental nature of energy flow and established the bedrock for much of modern quantum technology. The principles they established are directly responsible for enabling the creation of sophisticated quantum computers, ultra-sensitive sensors, and robust cryptographic frameworks.
The practical implications of this fundamental understanding are already evident. Research building upon their initial work has been crucial in advancing superconducting qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers. Furthermore, the techniques developed by this team are integral to superconducting quantum interference devices, or SQUIDs, which are among the most sensitive magnetic field detectors known. The Nobel Committee underscored the broad utility of the discovery, noting that quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology. The formal presentation of the 11 million Swedish kronor award is scheduled for December 10, 2025, in Stockholm.