Two U.C. Santa Barbara professors receive 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics

Three physicists, including a pair of University of California, Santa Barbara professors, have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for essentially bridging the gap between the invisible quantum world and the world we can see and touch.

UCSB professors John M. Martinis and Michel H. Devoret, along with John Clarke of U.C. Berkeley, were honored for experiments that revealed quantum behavior in a system big enough to hold in your hand. The trio will share an award of 11 million Swedish kronor (roughly $1 million USD). • This combination of images shows the winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in physics John Martinis (left), Michel H. Devoret (middle) and John Clarke (right). (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, Harold Shapiro/Yale University via AP, University of California, Berkeley via AP)