The Nobel Prize for 2025 was awarded on Tuesday to a trio of 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".
The Royal Swedish Academy's award of 11 million Swedish kronor (roughly $1.17 million) will be divided equally among them.
Through their experiments, the three physicists have shown that quantum tunnelling—or the process by which subatomic particles "pass" through a potential energy barrier, despite lacking the energy to overcome the barrier (in classical physics terms)—could be demonstrated on a scale "big enough to be held in the hand".
In simpler terms, they have just proven that even man-made circuits could act like quantum systems, which will be a huge influence in tech giants' race towards quantum computing.
(This is a developing story.)
