Superconducting quantum circuits: At the heart of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics

Z. Yamani, Marco Merkli

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes a conceptual shift that has been more than a century in the making: the transition from observing quantum phenomena in materials to deliberately engineering quantum behaviour in macroscopic electrical circuits. Awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis, the prize honours the experimental demonstration and control of macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantization in superconducting circuits. Their work resolved a long-standing question at the heart of quantum mechanics: can an object large enough to wire, probe, and manipulate behave as a single quantum system? The answer, now unequivocally, is yes.

O. Buisson, Wiebke Guichard, B. Pannetier +2 more

Yasunobu Nakamura

Sebastián Bergeret

Is it possible to create a Schrödinger’s cat in a laboratory - that is, to make a macroscopic object obey the laws of quantum mechanics? The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes experiments showing that this is indeed possible, using superconducting electrical circuits.

Leszek Jaroszynski

Yonuk Chong

The Nobel laureates of this year have devised an experiment to observe macroscopic quantum tunneling in an electrical circuit made of superconductors. This monumental discovery has sparked numerous innovations and ultimately earned the three pioneers the Nobel prize. Afterwards, superconducting circuits play a key role in the proliferation of quantum technology in the 21st century. Especially, in the heart of the 2nd quantum revolution, quantum information technology is based on the radical development of the quantum computers. Superconducting Josephson junction devices has been the most advanced technology that has been picked up by the global tech giants in quantum computing. I will briefly review how the superconducting quantum chips and the macroscopic quantum effect had led innovation in quantum technology afterwards.