The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the trio’s researchers for discovering quantum mechanics on an entirely new scale.
The University of California John Clark, Berkeley, Michelle H. Devolette, University of California Santa Barbara, and the University of California Santa Barbara, and the John M. Martini faction of the University of California Santa Barbara, “have received a famous award for the discovery of large quantum mechanical tunnels and energy quantums in electrical circuits.
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“To put it mildly, that was a surprise in my life,” Clark said over the phone at a press conference. “Of course I’m totally unsure. This could be the basis for the Nobel Prize.”
He said his discoveries (under the advanced microchips that exist in many modern technologies, including smartphones) are being used in further development of quantum computers.
Clark, DeVorette and Martinis conducted experiments that were able to demonstrate quantum mechanical tunnels and quantized energy levels in electrical circuits “large enough for your hands.” According to a statement released by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Quantum tunneling allows particles to pass through seemingly unpassable barriers. This is because particles exist in quantum physics as both waves and particles simultaneously. These waves are predicted probability of particles present in a particular space.
Just as a wave hitting the gro diameter of the ocean produces small waves that propagate to the opposite side, particles that exist as waves also exist on the opposite side of the barrier. It is this ability that electrons dive between layers of material that would otherwise pass by, at least in accordance with large-scale physical laws.
Before the researchers’ discoveries, quantum tunneling was observed on a single particle, but physicists quickly wondered whether multiple particles could tunnel in one go. One way to do this is to make the material very cold, converting them into superconductors by encouraging them to bond to the so-called “Cooper pair.”
Cooper pairs follow quantum mechanical rules that differ from those of lonely electrons. Instead of stacking each other to form an energy shell, they act like particles or photons of light. If these Cooper pairs are well created across the material, they become superfluid and flow without losing energy from the electrical resistivity.
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To make their discoveries, researchers sandwiched two superconductors between thin insulation barriers. Working together in the mid-1980s, scientists screened their Josephson junctions from interference before supplying weak currents there.
Initially, the voltage in this circuit was zero, indicating that there is no current flowing through the barrier. However, after repeated experiments multiple times, the researchers quickly discovered that voltages appeared throughout the device at various points. This indicates that electrons are actually tunneling across the system, acting as a single, large particle.
Fired microwaves absorbed by electrons showed that Cooper pair electrons had discrete and quantized energy levels despite the macroscopic collective state.
This discovery has many practical applications in physics and beyond. Collective systems are called artificial atoms, and many experiments and quantum technologies were developed from them.
“It’s great to be able to celebrate the way quantum mechanics from a century ago constantly offers new surprises,” Orle Erickson, chairman of the Nobel Committee on Physics, said in a statement. “Quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technologies, so it’s extremely useful.”
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