John M. Martinis
Facts
© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Clément Morin
John M. Martinis
Nobel Prize in Physics 2025
Born: 1958
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA; Qolab, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Prize motivation: “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
In quantum mechanics, particles can move straight through a barrier, in a process called tunnelling. Quantum mechanical behaviour is mainly exhibited at extremely microscopic scales. However, in 1984 and 1985, John M. Martinis, Michel H. Devoret and John Clarke demonstrated quantum mechanical properties on a macroscopic scale. In an electrical circuit built from superconductors – which conduct current without any resistance – tunnelling through an insulating layer occurred because the charged particles behaved as a single particle.
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