This combination of images shows the winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in physics John Martinis, Michel H. Devoret and John Clarke. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, Harold Shapiro via AP, University of California, Berkeley via AP
STOCKHOLM—Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for research on the strange behavior of subatomic particles called quantum tunneling that enables the ultra-sensitive measurements achieved by MRI machines and lays the groundwork for better cellphones and faster computers.
The work by John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis, who work at American universities, took the seeming contradictions of the subatomic world—where light can be both a wave and a particle and parts of atoms can tunnel through seemingly impenetrable barriers—and applied them in the more traditional physics of digital devices. The results of their findings are just starting to appear in advanced technology and could pave the way for the development of supercharged computing.
