STOCKHOLM (AP) — Three scientists won Nobel Prize in Physics Tuesday for research into a strange behavior of elementary particles called quantum tunneling that enabled the ultra-sensitive measurements achieved. By MRI machine And it laid the foundation for better cell phones and faster computers.
The work by John Clark, Michel H. Deboré and John M. Martinis, all working at American universities, took the seeming contradictions of the subatomic world, where light can be both waves and particles, and parts of atoms can pass through seemingly impenetrable barriers, and applied them to the more traditional physics of digital devices. The results of their discoveries are just beginning to emerge as cutting-edge technology; supercharged computing.
Award-winning research in the mid-1980s took the “quantum mechanical weirdness” of elementary particles and discovered how their tiny interactions have real-world applications, said Jonathan Bagger, CEO of the American Physical Society. This experiment was an important building block in the rapidly developing world of quantum mechanics.
John Martinis stands with his wife Jean in their living room after winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on quantum tunneling, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in Santa Barbara, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Clark, who led the research team, spoke from his cell phone. “One of the fundamental reasons why cell phones work is because of these tasks.”
When quantum mechanics was first revealed in 1926, a prominent physicist tried to explain its many contradictions using the example of a cat that was both alive and dead in a box. Richard Fitzgerald, editor-in-chief of Physics Today, who was part of a competing research group in the 1990s, said the three Nobel laureates showed that science could put such principles to work.
“They didn’t get that far, but they showed it was possible,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said the award-winning physicists had “raised the scale of the invisible, the intangible, the unfeelable” to the scale of the perceivable, “something you can build on.”
Clark, 83, conducted research at the University of California, Berkeley. Martinis, 67, worked at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to Yale University, Mr. Devoretto, 72, is enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
winner’s reaction
Martinis’ wife, Jean, told an Associated Press reporter who called her home hours after the announcement that Martinis was still asleep and didn’t know yet. She said she used to stay up the night of the physics award ceremony, but at some point she decided sleep was more important.
When his wife woke him up and told him that a journalist wanted an interview, the new Nobel laureate remembered that the award would be announced this week. He opened his computer to watch the announcement and saw a photo of himself with the other winners.
“So I was kind of shocked,” he said.
Clark said he never thought he would win the Nobel Prize.
“I almost fell over,” Clark told The Associated Press. “I was completely stunned. I mean, this is something I never dreamed of ever in my life.”
why work is important
Martinis — Senior scientist at Google; quantum computing Before co-founding his own company, Qolab. future goals is quantum computing. A huge leap forward in speed and sophistication By relying on the power of contradictory states in that subatomic world.
This combination of images shows the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics winners John Martinis, Michel H. Devore, and John Clark. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, Harold Shapiro, via AP, University of California, Berkeley, via AP)
That’s still 8 to 10 years away. But he said his team’s experiments showed that “computers have the potential to become much more powerful.”
Debore currently serves as a principal investigator for Google’s quantum computing efforts.
Mark Pearce, a professor of astrophysics and a member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said that while quantum computers are “just one obvious application”, the research could also help develop sensors to detect and measure weak phenomena such as magnetic fields, and advance cryptographic techniques for encrypting information.
Martinis also said that a better understanding of fine chemistry could lead to the development of better materials that are useful in everyday life, and could even further enhance artificial intelligence.
Before the Berkeley research began, scientists knew that single electrons or small pairs of electrons could tunnel through impenetrable barriers. What his team learned, Clark said, was that if you designed the circuit properly, you could “actually tunnel” objects larger and more useful than just a few electrons.
The discovery “can be used to create very sophisticated things that we can’t do any other way,” Clark said at a press conference, referring to the iPhone and quantum computers.
He also criticized the Trump administration’s policies. deep cut to science fundinghe said, “paralyzes science.”
At the Nobel General Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, from left: Nobel Physics Committee Chairman Ole Eriksson, Swedish Academy of Sciences Secretary-General Hans Ellegren, and Nobel Committee for Physics member Göran Johansson announce on the screen behind them the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics: John Clark, Michel H. Devore, and John M. Martinis. Sweden, Tuesday, October 7, 2025 (Christine Olsson/TT News Agency, via AP)
“If this situation continues… it could take 10 years to get back to where we were six months ago,” Clark said.
Martinis, Bagger and Fitzgerald said it’s a bit of an overstatement to say that cell phones now utilize Clark et al.’s breakthrough technology. But ultra-sensitive measurement devices rely on the work of research teams, such as MRI machines, and without those advances, Bagger said, they will be useless.
“Quantum mechanics is everywhere in everything we do, from our cell phones to the satellite communications that connect them to the screens we use to watch video on our phones,” Bagger says.
History of the Nobel Prize and other awards in 2025
Tuesday’s award marks the 119th time. Last year, the pioneers of artificial intelligence John Hopfield and Jeffrey Hinton He won the Physics Prize for his contributions to the creation of the building blocks for machine learning.
on monday, Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for his discoveries about how the immune system knows how to attack bacteria rather than our bodies.
Nobel Prize announcements continue chemistry award Wednesday and literature on Thursday. nobel peace prize The Nobel Memorial Prize was announced on Friday; economy on monday.
The award ceremony will be held on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896, the wealthy Swedish businessman and inventor of dynamite. the person who created the award.
The prize is an immense honor and comes with a prize of 11 million Swedish krona (approximately $1.2 million).
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Mr. Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Mr. Borenstein from Washington. Associated Press writer Aditi Ramakrishnan in New York contributed to this report.
