Nobel Prize-winning Research in Physical Review Letters

The Physical Review journals are home to the most Nobel-winning physics papers in the world. Over 65% of the Nobel-Prize-winning research published in the last four decades are included in Physical Review journals, as are Nobel Prize winners from the previous twelve years.

2022

Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger

For experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science

  • Physics Magazine 15, 153, Nobel Prize: Quantum Entanglement Unveiled
  • PRL 82, 1345 (1999), Observation of Three-Photon Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger Entanglement
  • PRL 80, 3891 (1998), Experimental Entanglement Swapping: Entangling Photons That Never Interacted
  • PRL 81, 5039 (1998), Violation of Bell's Inequality under Strict Einstein Locality Conditions
  • PRL 71, 4287 (1993), "Event-ready-detectors" Bell experiment via entanglement swapping
  • PRL 49, 91 (1982), Experimental Realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A New Violation of Bell's Inequalities
  • PRL 49, 1804 (1982), Experimental Test of Bell's Inequalities Using Time-Varying Analyzers
  • PRL 47, 460 (1981), Experimental Tests of Realistic Local Theories via Bell's Theorem
  • PRL 28, 938 (1972), Experimental Test of Local Hidden-Variable Theories
  • PRL 23, 880 (1969), Proposed Experiment to Test Local Hidden-Variable Theories

2021

Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann, Giorgio Parisi

Manabe and Hasselmann: For the physical modelling of Earth’s climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming

Parisi: For the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales

2020

Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, Andrea Ghez

Penrose: For the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity

Genzel and Ghez: For the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy

2019

James Peebles, Michel Mayor, Didier Queloz

Peebles: For theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology

Mayor and Queloz: For the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star

2018

Arthur Ashkin, Gerard Mourou, Donna Strickland

Ashkin: For groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics", in particular "for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems

Mourou and Strickland: For groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics", in particular "for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses

2017

Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, Barry Barish

For decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves

2016

David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane, John M. Kosterlitz

For theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter

  • APS News, November 2016, 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics
  • Physics Magazine 9, 116, Nobel Prize — Topological Phases of Matter
  • PRL 61, 2015 (1988), Model for a Quantum Hall Effect without Landau Levels: Condensed-Matter Realization of the "Parity Anomaly"
  • PRL 50, 1153 (1983), Nonlinear Field Theory of Large-Spin Heisenberg Antiferromagnets: Semiclassically Quantized Solitons of the One-Dimensional Easy-Axis Néel State
  • PRL 49, 405 (1982), Quantized Hall Conductance in a Two-Dimensional Periodic Potential
  • PRL 39, 1201 (1977), Universal Jump in the Superfluid Density of Two-Dimensional Superfluids

2015

Takaaki Kajita, Arthur B. McDonald

For the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass

  • APS News, November 2015, Neutrino Oscillations Nab Nobel Prize
  • Physics Magazine 8, 97, Nobel Prize — Neutrinos Oscillate
  • PRL 89, 011301 (2002), Direct Evidence for Neutrino Flavor Transformation from Neutral-Current Interactions in the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
  • PRL 87, 071301 (2001), Measurement of the Rate of (formula) Interactions Produced by (formula) Solar Neutrinos at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory
  • PRL 81, 1562 (1998), Evidence for Oscillation of Atmospheric Neutrinos

2014

Chemistry prize: Eric Bertzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner

For the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy

2013

Francois Englert, Peter Higgs

For the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider

2012

Serge Haroche, David J. Wineland

For ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems

  • APS News, November 2012, Quantum Wizardry Wins Nobel Recognition
  • Physics Magazine 5, 114, Nobel Prize — Tools for Quantum Tinkering
  • PRL 77.4887 (1996), Observing the Progressive Decoherence of the “Meter” in a Quantum Measurement
  • PRL 76, 1796 (1996), Generation of Nonclassical Motional States of a Trapped Atom
  • PRL 76, 1800 (1996), Quantum Rabi Oscillation: A Direct Test of Field Quantization in a Cavity
  • PRL 75.4714 (1995), Demonstration of a Fundamental Quantum Logic Gate

2011

Chemistry prize: Dan Shechtman

For the discovery of quasicrystals

For more information about winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, please consult the winners' list.