Three researchers from Britain, France, and the United States have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering discovery of quantum tunneling, a fundamental phenomenon in quantum mechanics that governs the behavior of matter on an extremely small scale.
The Nobel Committee announced that John Clark of Britain, Michel de Foret of France, and John Martinis of the United States received the prize for “their discovery of the phenomenon of quantum access at the macroscopic level and the quantization of energy in an electrical circuit,” a process known as quantum tunneling.
Quantum tunneling allows particles to pass through energy barriers that they would not normally be able to cross—a behavior that defies classical physics. While such effects typically vanish when involving many particles, the laureates’ experiments revealed that quantum behavior can persist on a large, observable scale.
Their discovery has opened new frontiers in quantum technology, with potential applications in quantum computing, advanced sensors, and secure encryption systems.
“It’s wonderful to celebrate how quantum mechanics, formulated a century ago, continues to reveal new surprises,” said Ole Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. “It also remains deeply practical—quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technologies.”
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