Overview

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences named the trio laureates on October 7 for demonstrating macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.
• Their 1984–85 studies showed a superconducting circuit could escape a zero‑voltage state via tunnelling and exhibit discrete energy levels, using a Josephson junction on a chip about one centimeter wide containing billions of Cooper pairs.
• The committee highlighted the work’s role in enabling superconducting qubits for quantum computing as well as advances in quantum cryptography and highly sensitive quantum sensors.
• John Clarke is British and at UC Berkeley, Michel H. Devoret is French and at Yale with UC ties, and John M. Martinis is American at UC Santa Barbara, with all three long active in U.S. research programs.
• The award carries 11 million Swedish kronor to be shared, with the formal presentation set for December 10 in Stockholm, and Clarke described the recognition as “the surprise of my life.”