Physics Nobel 2025 Awarded For Quantum Tunnelling, Energy Quantisation
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 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.”
The Nobel Prize winners carried out experiments proving that the strange behaviors of quantum physics can exist in larger, everyday-sized systems. They built a superconducting electrical setup that could shift from one state to another, almost as if it passed directly through a wall — a process known as quantum tunnelling. They also discovered that this system took in and released energy in fixed, specific amounts, exactly as quantum theory had predicted.
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One of the biggest mysteries in physics is how large an object can be and still show the strange behaviors predicted by quantum mechanics. Usually, these effects are only seen in atoms or tiny particles.
But this year’s Nobel Prize winners went a step further — they created an electrical circuit big enough to hold in your hand and showed that even this system could display quantum effects.
In their experiments, the circuit was able to “tunnel” through barriers, moving between states in a way that seems impossible in the normal world, and it also absorbed and released energy in fixed, tiny amounts known as quantised energy levels.
Their work proves that the weird rules of the quantum world can apply to much bigger systems than scientists once thought.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.
