Overview

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prize for the discovery of macroscopic quantum tunnelling and discrete energy levels in an electric circuit.
• The laureates’ 1984–85 studies used a superconducting Josephson‑junction circuit to demonstrate state switching via tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a device about a centimeter in size.
• The results showed that collective states of billions of Cooper pairs can exhibit quantum effects at macroscopic scale.
• The Nobel Committee underscored the work’s impact on superconducting devices such as SQUIDs and on qubits that underpin advances in quantum cryptography, computing and sensing.
• Clarke (UC Berkeley), Devoret (Yale/University of California) and Martinis (UC Santa Barbara) will share 11 million SEK at the December 10 Stockholm ceremony, and Clarke called the news “the surprise of my life.”