The Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2025 Prize to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of the macroscopic quantum tunnel effect and the quantization of energy in an electrical circuit.” In simpler terms, the winners have tried to answer one of the great questions of physics: what is the maximum size of a system capable of showing quantum effects. Find where is the limit on which the rules of the microscopic world apply and those that govern the visible world with which we are accustomed to relating.
Normally, the quantum effects, those oddities of the subatomic world, such as that a particle can be in two places at once or cross lead walls, are only observed at tiny scales, that of atoms, electrons or photons. However, when particles accumulate and form major systems, such as human beings or tables, those effects disappear. It is not known about anyone who can be in two places at the same time and nobody has seen that a pen on a table crosses it.
The merit of the Nobel winners is to demonstrate that, using adequate technology, it is possible to see and control quantum phenomena in a visible object.
Between the years 1984 and 1985, with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated the existence of the quantum tunnel effect and quantized energy levels in a large enough system to hold with your hand. To achieve the feat of joining these two seemingly isolated worlds, scientists built a small electrical circuit made with superconductor materials, capable of conducting electricity without resistance to very low temperatures. In that circuit they separated two superconductive pieces with a very thin layer of insulating material, a device widely used in quantum research.
The 2025 in Physics recognises experiments that demonstrated how quantum tunnelling can be observed on a macroscopic scale, involving many particles.
John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis – awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics – constructed an…
– The Nobel Prize (@nobelprze)
When they let out the circuit, they measured precisely what happened and discovered something extraordinary: the set of all the electric charges that moved in the superconductor behaved as if they were a single giant particle that occupied the entire circuit and that could do unexpected things.
The macroscopic particle was in a stable state in which the current flowed without generating voltage, trapped after a wall of energy. But, unlike what our experience with the walls tells us, the experiment showed that the particle could cross that barrier moving to a new voltage state and that he did it without receiving enough energy to jump it. That behavior is the same as that of microscopic quantum particles, which can cross barriers through what is known as a quantum tunnel. In this case, this tunnel effect had been observed for the first time in a visible object.
In addition, when measuring the energy of the particle, they found that it could not have any value, as normally with the objects of our macroscopic world, but that they had to have specific values, something typical of quantum behavior.
The Nobel Committee stressed that this finding joins the quantum world with the macroscopic and opens doors to new technologies such as quantum computing, quantum cryptography and quantum sensors. It is linked to the University of California in Berkeley, Yya that of California in Santa Barbara.
Shortly after the award failure was known, John Clarke showed his surprise for the news. “I am completely stunned, it never occurred to me that [aquel trabajo de hace cuatro décadas] It would be the basis of a Nobel Prize. ”
Juan Ignacio Cirac, director of the Theory Division of the Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching (Germany) and one of the scientists who entered the pools for this year’s Nobel, considers that it is a “very well deserved” award. “Their experiments have been crucial for advances in superconductive technologies and, today, are used in many areas, particularly in quantum computers,” said Science Media Center.
Last year, the Academy awarded the A prize, parents of artificial intelligence, “for fundamental discoveries and inventions that allow automatic learning with artificial neural networks.” Both scientists were recognized for their contributions to the learning of machines and the current Revolution of Artificial Intelligence.
In 2023, the Academy recognized the French, pioneers of Attosecond physics, to create new tools to explore the world of electrons within atoms. The Nobel Prize in Physics has already been granted 118 times.
Among the names that sounded in the pools such as the one elaborated by are the American David Divicenzo and the Swiss Daniel Loss. In a 1998 article, the theoretical bases to build a quantum computer laid, describing how the electron spin could be used, a fundamental characteristic of these particles, such as mass, to create quantum bits with which to encode information in what would be the computers of the future. In this same field, there was also Peter Shor, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Deutsch, Oxford or Spanish, from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics.
Another prize possibilities that Clarivate raised is Dutch astronomer and chemistry Ewine Van Disheck, a researcher who has made crucial contributions in the study of interstellar molecular clouds and their role in the formation of stars and planets.
[Noticia de última hora. Habrá actualización en breve]
