The Nobel Prize in Physics (Swedish: Nobelpriset i fysik) is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel (who died in 1896), awarded for outstanding contributions in physics. As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death. Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award prize that has varied throughout the years.
Tables
· Laureates
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1901
1901
Year
1901
Laureate
Wilhelm Röntgen(1845–1923)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him"
1902
1902
Year
1902
Laureate
Hendrik Lorentz(1853–1928)
Nationality
Dutch
Rationale
"in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena"
1903
1903
Year
1903
Laureate
Henri Becquerel(1852–1908)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity"
1904
1904
Year
1904
Laureate
Lord Rayleigh(1842–1919)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies"
1905
1905
Year
1905
Laureate
Philipp Lenard(1862–1947)
Nationality
Hungarian German
Rationale
"for his work on cathode rays"
1906
1906
Year
1906
Laureate
J. J. Thomson(1856–1940)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases"
1907
1907
Year
1907
Laureate
Albert A. Michelson(1852–1931)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid"
1908
1908
Year
1908
Laureate
Gabriel Lippmann(1845–1921)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference"
1909
1909
Year
1909
Laureate
Guglielmo Marconi(1874–1937)
Nationality
Italian
Rationale
"for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy"
1910
1910
Year
1910
Laureate
Johannes Diderik van der Waals(1837–1923)
Nationality
Dutch
Rationale
"for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids"
1911
1911
Year
1911
Laureate
Wilhelm Wien(1864–1928)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat"
1912
1912
Year
1912
Laureate
Gustaf Dalén(1869–1937)
Nationality
Swedish
Rationale
"for his invention of automatic valves designed to be used in combination with gas accumulators in lighthouses and buoys"
1913
1913
Year
1913
Laureate
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes(1853–1926)
Nationality
Dutch
Rationale
"for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium"
1914
1914
Year
1914
Laureate
Max von Laue(1879–1960)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"For his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals", an important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy.
1915
1915
Year
1915
Laureate
William Henry Bragg(1862–1942)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"'For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays', an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography"
1916
1916
Year
1916
1917
1917
Year
1917
Laureate
Charles Glover Barkla(1877–1944)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"'For his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements', another important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy"
1918
1918
Year
1918
Laureate
Max Planck(1858–1947)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"for the services he rendered to the advancement of physics by his discovery of energy quanta"
1919
1919
Year
1919
Laureate
Johannes Stark(1874–1957)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields"
1920
1920
Year
1920
Laureate
Charles Édouard Guillaume(1861–1938)
Nationality
Swiss
Rationale
"for the service he has rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel-steel alloys"
1921
1921
Year
1921
Laureate
Albert Einstein(1879–1955)
Nationality
German Swiss
Rationale
"for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"
1922
1922
Year
1922
Laureate
Niels Bohr(1885–1962)
Nationality
Danish
Rationale
"for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them"
1923
1923
Year
1923
Laureate
Robert Andrews Millikan(1868–1953)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"
1924
1924
Year
1924
Laureate
Manne Siegbahn(1886–1978)
Nationality
Swedish
Rationale
"for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy"
1925
1925
Year
1925
Laureate
James Franck(1882–1964)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom"
1926
1926
Year
1926
Laureate
Jean Baptiste Perrin(1870–1942)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium"
1927
1927
Year
1927
Laureate
Arthur Compton(1892–1962)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his discovery of the effect named after him"
1928
1928
Year
1928
Laureate
Owen Willans Richardson(1879–1959)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him"
1929
1929
Year
1929
Laureate
Louis de Broglie(1892–1987)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons"
1930
1930
Year
1930
Laureate
C. V. Raman(1888–1970)
Nationality
Indian
Rationale
"for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him"
1931
1931
Year
1931
1932
1932
Year
1932
Laureate
Werner Heisenberg(1901–1976)
Nationality
German
Rationale
"for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen"
1933
1933
Year
1933
Laureate
Erwin Schrödinger(1887–1961)
Nationality
Austrian
Rationale
"for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"
1934
1934
Year
1934
1935
1935
Year
1935
Laureate
James Chadwick(1891–1974)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for the discovery of the neutron"
1936
1936
Year
1936
Laureate
Victor Francis Hess(1883–1964)
Nationality
Austrian
Rationale
"for his discovery of cosmic radiation"
1937
1937
Year
1937
Laureate
Clinton Davisson(1881–1958)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"
1938
1938
Year
1938
Laureate
Enrico Fermi(1901–1954)
Nationality
Italian
Rationale
"for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons"
1939
1939
Year
1939
Laureate
Ernest Lawrence(1901–1958)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements"
1940
1940
Year
1940
1941
1941
Year
1941
1942
1942
Year
1942
1943
1943
Year
1943
Laureate
Otto Stern(1888–1969)
Nationality
German
American
Rationale
"for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton"
1944
1944
Year
1944
Laureate
Isidor Isaac Rabi(1898–1988)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei"
1945
1945
Year
1945
Laureate
Wolfgang Pauli(1900–1958)
Nationality
Austrian
Rationale
"for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli principle"
1946
1946
Year
1946
Laureate
Percy Williams Bridgman(1882–1961)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the invention of an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures, and for the discoveries he made there within the field of high pressure physics"
1947
1947
Year
1947
Laureate
Edward Victor Appleton(1892–1965)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer"
1948
1948
Year
1948
Laureate
Patrick Blackett(1897–1974)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation"
1949
1949
Year
1949
Laureate
Hideki Yukawa(1907–1981)
Nationality
Japanese
Rationale
"for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces"
1950
1950
Year
1950
Laureate
C. F. Powell(1903–1969)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method"
1951
1951
Year
1951
Laureate
John Cockcroft(1897–1967)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles"
1952
1952
Year
1952
Laureate
Felix Bloch(1905–1983)
Nationality
Swiss American
Rationale
"for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith"
1953
1953
Year
1953
Laureate
Frits Zernike(1888–1966)
Nationality
Dutch
Rationale
"for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope"
1954
1954
Year
1954
Laureate
Max Born(1882–1970)
Nationality
West German British
Rationale
"for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction"
1955
1955
Year
1955
Laureate
Willis Lamb(1913–2008)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum"
1956
1956
Year
1956
Laureate
John Bardeen(1908–1991)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect"
1957
1957
Year
1957
Laureate
Lee Tsung-Dao(1926–2024)
Nationality
Chinese
Rationale
"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles"
1958
1958
Year
1958
Laureate
Pavel Cherenkov(1904–1990)
Nationality
Soviet
Rationale
"for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect"
1959
1959
Year
1959
Laureate
Emilio Segrè(1905–1989)
Nationality
Italian American
Rationale
"for their discovery of the antiproton"
1960
1960
Year
1960
Laureate
Donald A. Glaser(1926–2013)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the invention of the bubble chamber"
1961
1961
Year
1961
Laureate
Robert Hofstadter(1915–1990)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons"
1962
1962
Year
1962
Laureate
Lev Landau(1908–1968)
Nationality
Soviet
Rationale
"for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium"
1963
1963
Year
1963
Laureate
Eugene Wigner(1902–1995)
Nationality
Hungarian American
Rationale
"for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"
1964
1964
Year
1964
Laureate
Nikolay Basov(1922–2001)
Nationality
Soviet
Rationale
"for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser–laser principle"
1965
1965
Year
1965
Laureate
Richard Feynman(1918–1988)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics (QED), with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles"
1966
1966
Year
1966
Laureate
Alfred Kastler(1902–1984)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms"
1967
1967
Year
1967
Laureate
Hans Bethe(1906–2005)
Nationality
German
American
Rationale
"for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars"
1968
1968
Year
1968
Laureate
Luis Alvarez(1911–1988)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis"
1969
1969
Year
1969
Laureate
Murray Gell-Mann(1929–2019)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions"
1970
1970
Year
1970
Laureate
Hannes Alfvén(1908–1995)
Nationality
Swedish
Rationale
"for fundamental work and discoveries in magneto-hydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics"
1971
1971
Year
1971
Laureate
Dennis Gabor(1900–1979)
Nationality
Hungarian British
Rationale
"for his invention and development of the holographic method"
1972
1972
Year
1972
Laureate
John Bardeen(1908–1991)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory"
1973
1973
Year
1973
Laureate
Leo Esaki(b. 1925)
Nationality
Japanese
Rationale
"for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively"
1974
1974
Year
1974
Laureate
Martin Ryle(1918–1984)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars"
1975
1975
Year
1975
Laureate
Aage Bohr(1922–2009)
Nationality
Danish
Rationale
"for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection"
1976
1976
Year
1976
Laureate
Samuel C. C. Ting(b. 1936)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind"
1977
1977
Year
1977
Laureate
Philip Warren Anderson(1923–2020)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems"
1978
1978
Year
1978
Laureate
Pyotr Kapitsa(1894–1984)
Nationality
Soviet
Rationale
"for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics"
1979
1979
Year
1979
Laureate
Sheldon Glashow(b. 1932)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current"
1980
1980
Year
1980
Laureate
James Cronin(1931–2016)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"
1981
1981
Year
1981
Laureate
Nicolaas Bloembergen(1920–2017)
Nationality
Dutch American
Rationale
"for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy"
1982
1982
Year
1982
Laureate
Kenneth G. Wilson(1936–2013)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions"
1983
1983
Year
1983
Laureate
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar(1910–1995)
Nationality
Indian American
Rationale
"for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars"
1984
1984
Year
1984
Laureate
Carlo Rubbia(b. 1934)
Nationality
Italian
Rationale
"for their decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction"
1985
1985
Year
1985
Laureate
Klaus von Klitzing(b. 1943)
Nationality
West German
Rationale
"for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect"
1986
1986
Year
1986
Laureate
Ernst Ruska(1906–1988)
Nationality
West German
Rationale
"for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope"
1987
1987
Year
1987
Laureate
Georg Bednorz(b. 1950)
Nationality
West German
Rationale
"for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials"
1988
1988
Year
1988
Laureate
Leon M. Lederman(1922–2018)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino"
1989
1989
Year
1989
Laureate
Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.(1915–2011)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks"
1990
1990
Year
1990
Laureate
Jerome I. Friedman(b. 1930)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics"
1991
1991
Year
1991
Laureate
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes(1932–2007)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers"
1992
1992
Year
1992
Laureate
Georges Charpak(1924–2010)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber"
1993
1993
Year
1993
Laureate
Russell Alan Hulse(b. 1950)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"
1994
1994
Year
1994
Laureate
Bertram Brockhouse(1918–2003)
Nationality
Canadian
Rationale
"for the development of neutron spectroscopy" and "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter"
1995
1995
Year
1995
Laureate
Martin Lewis Perl(1927–2014)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the discovery of the tau lepton" and "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics"
1996
1996
Year
1996
Laureate
David Lee(b. 1931)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3"
1997
1997
Year
1997
Laureate
Steven Chu(b. 1948)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light."
1998
1998
Year
1998
Laureate
Robert B. Laughlin(b. 1950)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations"
1999
1999
Year
1999
Laureate
Gerard 't Hooft(b. 1946)
Nationality
Dutch
Rationale
"for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"
2000
2000
Year
2000
Laureate
Zhores Alferov(1930–2019)
Nationality
Russian
Rationale
"for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics"
2001
2001
Year
2001
Laureate
Eric Allin Cornell(b. 1961)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates"
2002
2002
Year
2002
Laureate
Raymond Davis Jr.(1914–2006)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"
2003
2003
Year
2003
Laureate
Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov(1928–2017)
Nationality
Russian American
Rationale
"for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids"
2004
2004
Year
2004
Laureate
David Gross(b. 1941)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"
2005
2005
Year
2005
Laureate
Roy J. Glauber(1925–2018)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"
2006
2006
Year
2006
Laureate
John C. Mather(b. 1946)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"
2007
2007
Year
2007
Laureate
Albert Fert(b. 1938)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance"
2008
2008
Year
2008
Laureate
Makoto Kobayashi(b. 1944)
Nationality
Japanese
Rationale
"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature"
2009
2009
Year
2009
Laureate
Charles K. Kao(1933–2018)
Nationality
British
American
Hongkonger
Rationale
"for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication"
2010
2010
Year
2010
Laureate
Andre Geim(b. 1958)
Nationality
Russian British
Rationale
"for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"
2011
2011
Year
2011
Laureate
Saul Perlmutter(b. 1959)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae"
2012
2012
Year
2012
Laureate
Serge Haroche(b. 1944)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems."
2013
2013
Year
2013
Laureate
François Englert(b. 1932)
Nationality
Belgian
Rationale
"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"
2014
2014
Year
2014
Laureate
Isamu Akasaki(1929–2021)
Nationality
Japanese
Rationale
"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources"
2015
2015
Year
2015
Laureate
Takaaki Kajita(b. 1959)
Nationality
Japanese
Rationale
"for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass"
2016
2016
Year
2016
Laureate
David J. Thouless(1934–2019)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter"
2017
2017
Year
2017
Laureate
Rainer Weiss(1932–2025)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves"
2018
2018
Year
2018
Laureate
Arthur Ashkin(1922–2020)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics", in particular "for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems"
2019
2019
Year
2019
Laureate
James Peebles(b. 1935)
Nationality
Canadian American
Rationale
"for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology"
2020
2020
Year
2020
Laureate
Roger Penrose(b. 1931)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity"
2021
2021
Year
2021
Laureate
Syukuro Manabe(b. 1931)
Nationality
Japanese American
Rationale
"for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming"
2022
2022
Year
2022
Laureate
Alain Aspect(b. 1947)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science"
2023
2023
Year
2023
Laureate
Anne L'Huillier(b. 1958)
Nationality
French
Rationale
"for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter"
2024
2024
Year
2024
Laureate
John Hopfield(b. 1933)
Nationality
American
Rationale
"for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks"
2025
2025
Year
2025
Laureate
John Clarke(b. 1942)
Nationality
British
Rationale
"for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit"
Ranked list
Year
Image
Laureate
Nationality
Rationale
Ref
1901
Wilhelm Röntgen(1845–1923)
German
"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him"
1902
Hendrik Lorentz(1853–1928)
Dutch
"in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena"
Pieter Zeeman(1865–1943)
1903
Henri Becquerel(1852–1908)
French
"for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity"
Pierre Curie(1859–1906)
"for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"
Marie Curie(1867–1934)
Polish French
1904
Lord Rayleigh(1842–1919)
British
"for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies"
1905
Philipp Lenard(1862–1947)
Hungarian German
"for his work on cathode rays"
1906
J. J. Thomson(1856–1940)
British
"for his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases"
1907
Albert A. Michelson(1852–1931)
American
"for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid"
1908
Gabriel Lippmann(1845–1921)
French
"for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference"
1909
Guglielmo Marconi(1874–1937)
Italian
"for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy"
Karl Ferdinand Braun(1850–1918)
German
1910
Johannes Diderik van der Waals(1837–1923)
Dutch
"for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids"
1911
Wilhelm Wien(1864–1928)
German
"for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat"
1912
Gustaf Dalén(1869–1937)
Swedish
"for his invention of automatic valves designed to be used in combination with gas accumulators in lighthouses and buoys"
1913
Heike Kamerlingh Onnes(1853–1926)
Dutch
"for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium"
1914
Max von Laue(1879–1960)
German
"For his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals", an important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy.
1915
William Henry Bragg(1862–1942)
British
For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays', an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography"
Lawrence Bragg(1890–1971)
1916
Not awarded due to World War I
1917
Charles Glover Barkla(1877–1944)
British
For his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements', another important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy"
1918
Max Planck(1858–1947)
German
"for the services he rendered to the advancement of physics by his discovery of energy quanta"
1919
Johannes Stark(1874–1957)
German
"for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields"
1920
Charles Édouard Guillaume(1861–1938)
Swiss
"for the service he has rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel-steel alloys"
1921
Albert Einstein(1879–1955)
German Swiss
"for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"
1922
Niels Bohr(1885–1962)
Danish
"for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them"
1923
Robert Andrews Millikan(1868–1953)
American
"for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"
1924
Manne Siegbahn(1886–1978)
Swedish
"for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy"
1925
James Franck(1882–1964)
German
"for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom"
Gustav Hertz(1887–1975)
1926
Jean Baptiste Perrin(1870–1942)
French
"for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium"
1927
Arthur Compton(1892–1962)
American
"for his discovery of the effect named after him"
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson(1869–1959)
British
"for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour"
1928
Owen Willans Richardson(1879–1959)
British
"for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him"
1929
Louis de Broglie(1892–1987)
French
"for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons"
1930
C. V. Raman(1888–1970)
Indian
"for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him"
1931
Not awarded
1932
Werner Heisenberg(1901–1976)
German
"for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen"
1933
Erwin Schrödinger(1887–1961)
Austrian
"for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"
Paul Dirac(1902–1984)
British
1934
Not awarded
1935
James Chadwick(1891–1974)
British
"for the discovery of the neutron"
1936
Victor Francis Hess(1883–1964)
Austrian
"for his discovery of cosmic radiation"
Carl David Anderson(1905–1991)
American
"for his discovery of the positron"
1937
Clinton Davisson(1881–1958)
American
"for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"
George Paget Thomson(1892–1975)
British
1938
Enrico Fermi(1901–1954)
Italian
"for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons"
1939
Ernest Lawrence(1901–1958)
American
"for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements"
· Laureates › Number of Nobel laureates in Physics by country
Multi-metric bars
World heat map
United States
United States
Country
United States
Number of Nobel laureates
92
Germany
Germany
Country
Germany
Number of Nobel laureates
26
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
Country
United Kingdom
Number of Nobel laureates
26
France
France
Country
France
Number of Nobel laureates
17
Russia/ Soviet Union
Russia/ Soviet Union
Country
Russia/ Soviet Union
Number of Nobel laureates
10
Netherlands
Netherlands
Country
Netherlands
Number of Nobel laureates
9
Japan
Japan
Country
Japan
Number of Nobel laureates
9
Canada
Canada
Country
Canada
Number of Nobel laureates
6
Switzerland
Switzerland
Country
Switzerland
Number of Nobel laureates
6
Italy
Italy
Country
Italy
Number of Nobel laureates
6
Austria
Austria
Country
Austria
Number of Nobel laureates
5
Hungary
Hungary
Country
Hungary
Number of Nobel laureates
4
Sweden
Sweden
Country
Sweden
Number of Nobel laureates
4
Denmark
Denmark
Country
Denmark
Number of Nobel laureates
3
Republic of China (1912–1949)
Republic of China (1912–1949)
Country
Republic of China (1912–1949)
Number of Nobel laureates
2
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Country
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Number of Nobel laureates
2
India
India
Country
India
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Australia
Australia
Country
Australia
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Country
Azerbaijan
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Norway
Norway
Country
Norway
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Poland
Poland
Country
Poland
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Ireland
Ireland
Country
Ireland
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Pakistan
Pakistan
Country
Pakistan
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Belgium
Belgium
Country
Belgium
Number of Nobel laureates
1
Ranked list
Country
Number of Nobel laureates
United States
92
Germany
26
United Kingdom
26
France
17
Russia/ Soviet Union
10
Netherlands
9
Japan
9
Canada
6
Switzerland
6
Italy
6
Austria
5
Hungary
4
Sweden
4
Denmark
3
Republic of China (1912–1949)
2
Republic of China (Taiwan)
2
India
1
Australia
1
Azerbaijan
1
Norway
1
Poland
1
Ireland
1
Pakistan
1
Belgium
1
References
The form and spelling of the names are taken from the official website of the Nobel Foundation. Alternative spellings an
The citation for each award is quoted (not always in full) from the official website of the Nobel Foundation.
