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BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 in Physics to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.”

This year’s physics laureates’ experiments on a chip revealed quantum physics in action.

A major question in physics is the maximum size of a system that can demonstrate quantum mechanical effects. The 2025 physics laureates conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand.

Quantum mechanics allows a particle to move straight through a barrier, using a process called tunnelling. As soon as large numbers of particles are involved, quantum mechanical effects usually become insignificant. The laureates’ experiments demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale.

In 1984 and 1985, John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis conducted a series of experiments with an electronic circuit built of superconductors, components that can conduct a current with no electrical resistance. In the circuit, the superconducting components were separated by a thin layer of non-conductive material, a setup known as a Josephson junction. By refining and measuring all the various properties of their circuit, they were able to control and explore the phenomena that arose when they passed a current through it. Together, the charged particles moving through the superconductor comprised a system that behaved as if they were a single particle that filled the entire circuit.

This macroscopic particle-like system is initially in a state in which current flows without any voltage. The system is trapped in this state, as if behind a barrier that it cannot cross. In the experiment the system shows its quantum character by managing to escape the zero-voltage state through tunnelling. The system’s changed state is detected through the appearance of a voltage.

The laureates could also demonstrate that the system behaves in the manner predicted by quantum mechanics – it is quantised, meaning that it only absorbs or emits specific amounts of energy.

The transistors in computer microchips are one example of the established quantum technology that surrounds us. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors.

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The 2025 Nobel Prize 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 experiment using a superconducting electrical circuit.

The chip that held this circuit was about a centimetre in size. Previously, tunnelling and energy quantisation had been studied in systems that had just a few particles; here, these phenomena appeared in a quantum mechanical system with billions of Cooper pairs that filled the entire superconductor on the chip. In this way, the experiment took quantum mechanical effects from a microscopic scale to a macroscopic one.

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BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal–organic frameworks.”

The 2025 Nobel Prize laureates in chemistry have created molecular constructions with large spaces through which gases and other chemicals can flow. These constructions, metal–organic frameworks, can be used to harvest water from desert air, capture carbon dioxide, store toxic gases or catalyse chemical reactions.

Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi have developed a new form of molecular architecture. In their constructions, metal ions function as corner-stones that are linked by long organic (carbon-based) molecules. Together, the metal ions and molecules are organised to form crystals that contain large cavities. These porous materials are called metal–organic frameworks (M*F). By varying the building blocks used in the M*Fs, chemists can design them to capture and store specific substances. M*Fs can also drive chemical reactions or conduct electricity.

“Metal–organic frameworks have enormous potential, bringing previously unforeseen opportunities for custom-made materials with new functions,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

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Shimon Sakaguchi – awarded this year’s medicine prize – was born in 1951.

He received his M.D. in 1976 from Kyoto University, Japan and a Ph.D. in 1983 from the same university. He is a distinguished professor at the Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC)免疫学フロンティア研究センター in Osaka University, Japan.

https://www.ifrec.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/laboratory/shimon_sakaguchi/