Key Points
- John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis win the 2025 Physics Prize.
- Honored for making quantum mechanical tunneling visible in electric circuits.
- The list of nobel prize winners now includes 230 laureates from 119 prizes since 1901.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is the highest honor in science, given to people who have made amazing discoveries that change our understanding of the universe. This year's recipients, John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis, join the esteemed list of Nobel Prize winners for their work making quantum phenomena visible on a macroscopic scale.
Since 1901, the prize has honored 230 physics Nobel laureates with world-changing discoveries, from X-rays to artificial intelligence. This complete list includes everyone who has won the Nobel Prize in Physics so far, based on the official Nobel Prize website.
The Nobel Prize in Physics is one of the five original prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gives this award to the person or group who has made the most important discovery or invention in physics.
| Statistic | About Nobel Prize in Physics (1901–2024) |
| Prizes Awarded | 119 |
| Total Laureates | 230 (226 individuals) |
| Women Laureates | 5 (Including Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize) |
| Laureate with Two Physics Prizes | John Bardeen (1956 and 1972) |
| Youngest Laureate | Lawrence Bragg (25 years old in 1915) |
| Oldest Laureate | Arthur Ashkin (96 years old in 2018) |
Who are the Nobel Prize Winners in Physics 2025?
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for groundbreaking work that brought the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics out of the subatomic realm and into the everyday world. The trio was honored for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit. Their experiments used superconducting electrical components to create a system large enough to demonstrate clear quantum effects, paving the way for the next generation of quantum computers and sensors.
BREAKING NEWS
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2025
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 #NobelPrize in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” pic.twitter.com/XkDUKWbHpz
All Physics Nobel Laureates and their Discoveries (2025 - 1901)
This list of Nobel Prize winners in physics shows how our understanding has changed over time, from Wilhelm Röntgen's work in 1901 to the most recent advances in artificial intelligence.
The table below lists all the Nobel Prize winners, including the year they won, the groundbreaking physicists who won, and the groundbreaking discoveries that led to the award.
| Year | Laureate(s) | Discovery |
| 2025 | John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis | For the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit. |
| 2024 | John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton | For foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks. |
| 2023 | Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L'Huillier | For experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter. |
| 2022 | Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger | For experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science. |
| 2021 | Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, and Giorgio Parisi | For groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex physical systems (Climate modelling and the interplay of disorder/fluctuations). |
| 2020 | Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez | For discoveries concerning black hole formation and the supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy. |
| 2019 | James Peebles, Michel Mayor, and Didier Queloz | For contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star. |
| 2018 | Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland | For groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics (optical tweezers and ultra-short optical pulses). |
| 2013 | François Englert and Peter Higgs | For the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles (Higgs boson). |
| 1965 | Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, and Shinichiro Tomonaga | For fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics. |
| 1933 | Erwin Schrödinger and Paul A.M. Dirac | For the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory. |
| 1921 | Albert Einstein | For his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. |
| 1903 | Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie | In recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. |
| 1901 | Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen | In honor of the amazing work he did by finding the amazing rays that were later named after him (X-rays). |
Also Read - Nobel Prize Winners 2025: Two US Immunologists Win Science’s Top Honor
The Nobel Prize in Physics has a long history of inspiring new ideas. It shows that basic research is the best way to learn about the universe's deepest secrets. As we welcome the 2025 winners, the complete list of Nobel Prize winners reminds us of all the amazing things people can do in science and discovery.
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