List of Nobel laureates in Physics

Table columns:
Year
Image
Laureate[A]
Country[B]
Rationale[C]
Ref

Table rows:
cells: 1901
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
Germany
"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him"
[8]
cells: 1902
Hendrik Lorentz
Netherlands
"in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena"
[9]
cells: Pieter Zeeman
Netherlands
cells: 1903
Antoine Henri Becquerel
France
"for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity"
[10]
cells: Pierre Curie
France
"for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"
[10]
cells: Maria Skłodowska-Curie
Poland  France
cells: 1904
Lord Rayleigh
United Kingdom
"for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies"
[11]
cells: 1905
Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard
Austria-Hungary  Germany
"for his work on cathode rays"
[12]
cells: 1906
Joseph John Thomson
United Kingdom
"for his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases"
[13]
cells: 1907
Albert Abraham Michelson
United States  Poland
"for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid"
[14]
cells: 1908
Gabriel Lippmann
France
"for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference"
[15]
cells: 1909
Guglielmo Marconi
Italy
"for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy"
[16]
cells: Karl Ferdinand Braun
Germany
cells: 1910
Johannes Diderik van der Waals
Netherlands
"for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids"
[17]
cells: 1911
Wilhelm Wien
Germany
"for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat"
[18]
cells: 1912
Nils Gustaf Dalén
Sweden
"for his invention of automatic valves designed to be used in combination with gas accumulators in lighthouses and buoys"
[19]
cells: 1913
Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes
Netherlands
"for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium"
[20]
cells: 1914
Max von Laue
Germany
"For his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals", an important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy.
[21]
cells: 1915
William Henry Bragg
United Kingdom
"For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays", an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography
[22]
cells: William Lawrence Bragg
Australia  United Kingdom
cells: 1916
Not awarded World War I
Not awarded World War I
Not awarded World War I
Not awarded World War I
Not awarded World War I
cells: 1917
Charles Glover Barkla
United Kingdom
"For his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements", another important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy
[23]
cells: 1918
Max Planck
Germany
"for the services he rendered to the advancement of physics by his discovery of energy quanta"
[24]
cells: 1919
Johannes Stark
Germany
"for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields"
[25]
cells: 1920
Charles Édouard Guillaume
Switzerland
"for the service he has rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel-steel alloys"
[26]
cells: 1921
Albert Einstein
Germany  Switzerland
"for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"
[7]
cells: 1922
Niels Bohr
Denmark
"for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them"
[27]
cells: 1923
Robert Andrews Millikan
United States
"for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"
[28]
cells: 1924
Manne Siegbahn
Sweden
"for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy"
[29]
cells: 1925
James Franck
Germany
"for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom"
[30]
cells: Gustav Hertz
Germany
cells: 1926
Jean Baptiste Perrin
France
"for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium"
[31]
cells: 1927
Arthur Holly Compton
United States
"for his discovery of the effect named after him"
[32]
cells: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
United Kingdom
"for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour"
[32]
cells: 1928
Owen Willans Richardson
United Kingdom
"for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him"
[33]
cells: 1929
Louis Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th Duc de Broglie
France
"for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons"
[34]
cells: 1930
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
India
"for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him"
[35]
cells: 1931
Not awarded
Not awarded
Not awarded
Not awarded
Not awarded
cells: 1932
Werner Heisenberg
Germany
"for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen"
[36]
cells: 1933
Erwin Schrödinger
Austria
"for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"
[37]
cells: Paul Dirac
United Kingdom
cells: 1934
Not awarded
Not awarded
Not awarded
Not awarded
Not awarded
cells: 1935
James Chadwick
United Kingdom
"for the discovery of the neutron"
[38]
cells: 1936
Victor Francis Hess
Austria
"for his discovery of cosmic radiation"
[39]
cells: Carl David Anderson
United States
"for his discovery of the positron"
[39]
cells: 1937
Clinton Joseph Davisson
United States
"for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"
[40]
cells: George Paget Thomson
United Kingdom
cells: 1938
Enrico Fermi
Italy
"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"
[41]
cells: 1939
Ernest Lawrence
United States
"for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements"
[42]
cells: 1940
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
cells: 1941
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
cells: 1942
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
Not awarded World War II
cells: 1943
Otto Stern
United States
"for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton"
[43]
cells: 1944
Isidor Isaac Rabi
United States  Poland
"for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei"
[44]
cells: 1945
Wolfgang Pauli
Austria
"for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli principle"
[45]
cells: 1946
Percy Williams Bridgman
United States
"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"
[46]
cells: 1947
Edward Victor Appleton
United Kingdom
"for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer"
[47]
cells: 1948
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett
United Kingdom
"for his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation"
[48]
cells: 1949
Hideki Yukawa
Japan
"for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces"
[49]
cells: 1950
Cecil Frank Powell
United Kingdom
"for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method"
[50]
cells: 1951
John Douglas Cockcroft
United Kingdom
"for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles"
[51]
cells: Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton
Ireland
cells: 1952
Felix Bloch
Switzerland  United States
"for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith"
[52]
cells: Edward Mills Purcell
United States
cells: 1953
Frits Zernike
Netherlands
"for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope"
[53]
cells: 1954
Max Born
West Germany
"for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction"
[54]
cells: Walther Bothe
West Germany
"for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith"
[54]
cells: 1955
Willis Eugene Lamb
United States
"for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum"
[55]
cells: Polykarp Kusch
United States  Germany
"for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron"
[55]
cells: 1956
John Bardeen
United States
"for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect"
[56]
cells: Walter Houser Brattain
United States
cells: William Bradford Shockley
United States
cells: 1957
Tsung-Dao Lee
Republic of China
"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles"
[57]
cells: Chen-Ning Yang
Republic of China
cells: 1958
Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov
Soviet Union
"for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect"
[58]
cells: Ilya Frank
Soviet Union
cells: Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm
Soviet Union
cells: 1959
Emilio Gino Segrè
Italy  United States
"for their discovery of the antiproton"
[59]
cells: Owen Chamberlain
United States
cells: 1960
Donald Arthur Glaser
United States
"for the invention of the bubble chamber"
[60]
cells: 1961
Robert Hofstadter
United States
"for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons"
[61]
cells: Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer
West Germany
"for his researches concerning the resonance absorption of gamma radiation and his discovery in this connection of the effect which bears his name"
[61]
cells: 1962
Lev Davidovich Landau
Soviet Union
"for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium"
[62]
cells: 1963
Eugene Paul Wigner
Hungary  United States
"for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"
[63]
cells: Maria Goeppert-Mayer
United States
"for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"
[63]
cells: J. Hans D. Jensen
West Germany
cells: 1964
Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov
Soviet Union
"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"
[64]
cells: Alexander Prokhorov
Soviet Union
cells: Charles Hard Townes
United States
cells: 1965
Richard Phillips Feynman
United States
"for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics (QED), with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles"
[65]
cells: Julian Schwinger
United States
cells: Shin'ichirō Tomonaga
Japan
cells: 1966
Alfred Kastler
France
"for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms"
[66]
cells: 1967
Hans Albrecht Bethe
United States
"for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars"
[67]
cells: 1968
Luis Walter Alvarez
United States
"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"
[68]
cells: 1969
Murray Gell-Mann
United States
"for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions"
[69]
cells: 1970
Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén
Sweden
"for fundamental work and discoveries in magneto-hydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics"
[70]
cells: Louis Néel
France
"for fundamental work and discoveries concerning antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism which have led to important applications in solid state physics"
[70]
cells: 1971
Dennis Gabor
Hungary  United Kingdom
"for his invention and development of the holographic method"
[71]
cells: 1972
John Bardeen
United States
"for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory"
[72]
cells: Leon Neil Cooper
United States
cells: John Robert Schrieffer
United States
cells: 1973
Leo Esaki
Japan
"for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively"
[73]
cells: Ivar Giaever
United States  Norway
cells: Brian David Josephson
United Kingdom
"for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effect"
[73]
cells: 1974
Martin Ryle
United Kingdom
"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"
[74]
cells: Antony Hewish
United Kingdom
cells: 1975
Aage Bohr
Denmark
"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"
[75]
cells: Ben Roy Mottelson
Denmark
cells: Leo James Rainwater
United States
cells: 1976
Burton Richter
United States
"for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind"
[76]
cells: Samuel Chao Chung Ting
United States
cells: 1977
Philip Warren Anderson
United States
"for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems"
[77]
cells: Nevill Francis Mott
United Kingdom
cells: John Hasbrouck Van Vleck
United States
cells: 1978
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa
Soviet Union
"for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics"
[78]
cells: Arno Allan Penzias
United States
"for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"
[78]
cells: Robert Woodrow Wilson
United States
cells: 1979
Sheldon Lee Glashow
United States
"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"
[79]
cells: Abdus Salam
Pakistan
cells: Steven Weinberg
United States
cells: 1980
James Watson Cronin
United States
"for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"
[80]
cells: Val Logsdon Fitch
United States
cells: 1981
Nicolaas Bloembergen
Netherlands  United States
"for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy"
[81]
cells: Arthur Leonard Schawlow
United States
cells: Kai Manne Börje Siegbahn
Sweden
"for his contribution to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy"
[81]
cells: 1982
Kenneth G. Wilson
United States
"for his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions"
[82]
cells: 1983
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
India  United States
"for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars"
[83]
cells: William Alfred Fowler
United States
"for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe"
[83]
cells: 1984
Carlo Rubbia
Italy
"for their decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction"
[84]
cells: Simon van der Meer
Netherlands
cells: 1985
Klaus von Klitzing Klaus|von Klitzing}}
West Germany
"for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect"
[85]
cells: 1986
Ernst Ruska
West Germany
"for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope"
[86]
cells: Gerd Binnig
West Germany
"for their design of the scanning tunneling microscope"
[86]
cells: Heinrich Rohrer
Switzerland
cells: 1987
Johannes Georg Bednorz
West Germany
"for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials"
[87]
cells: Karl Alexander Müller
Switzerland
cells: 1988
Leon Max Lederman
United States
"for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino"
[88]
cells: Melvin Schwartz
United States
cells: Jack Steinberger
United States
cells: 1989
Norman Foster Ramsey
United States
"for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks"
[89]
cells: Hans Georg Dehmelt
United States  Germany
"for the development of the ion trap technique"
[89]
cells: Wolfgang Paul
West Germany
cells: 1990
Jerome I. Friedman
United States
"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"
[90]
cells: Henry Way Kendall
United States
cells: Richard E. Taylor
Canada
cells: 1991
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
France
"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"
[91]
cells: 1992
Georges Charpak
France  Poland
"for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber"
[92]
cells: 1993
Russell Alan Hulse
United States
"for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"
[93]
cells: Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr.
United States
cells: 1994
Bertram Brockhouse
Canada
"for the development of neutron spectroscopy" and "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter"
[94]
cells: Clifford Glenwood Shull
United States
"for the development of the neutron diffraction technique" and "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter"
[94]
cells: 1995
Martin Lewis Perl
United States
"for the discovery of the tau lepton" and "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics"
[95]
cells: Frederick Reines
United States
"for the detection of the neutrino" and "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics"
[95]
cells: 1996
David Morris Lee
United States
"for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3"
[96]
cells: Douglas D. Osheroff
United States
cells: Robert Coleman Richardson
United States
cells: 1997
Steven Chu
United States
"for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light."
[97]
cells: Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
France
cells: William Daniel Phillips
United States
cells: 1998
Robert B. Laughlin
United States
"for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations"
[98]
cells: Horst Ludwig Störmer
Germany
cells: Daniel Chee Tsui
Republic of China  United States
cells: 1999
Gerard 't Hooft
Netherlands
"for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"
[99]
cells: Martinus J. G. Veltman
Netherlands
cells: 2000
Zhores Ivanovich Alferov
Russia
"for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics"
[100]
cells: Herbert Kroemer
Germany
cells: Jack St. Clair Kilby
United States
"for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit"
[100]
cells: 2001
Eric Allin Cornell
United States
"for the achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates"
[101]
cells: Carl Edwin Wieman
United States
cells: Wolfgang Ketterle
Germany
cells: 2002
Raymond Davis Jr.
United States
"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"
[102]
cells: Masatoshi Koshiba
Japan
cells: Riccardo Giacconi
Italy  United States
"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"
[102]
cells: 2003
Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov
Russia  United States
"for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids"
[103]
cells: Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg
Russia
cells: Anthony James Leggett
United Kingdom  United States
cells: 2004
David J. Gross
United States
"for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"
[104]
cells: Hugh David Politzer
United States
cells: Frank Wilczek
United States
cells: 2005
Roy J. Glauber
United States
"for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"
[105]
cells: John L. Hall
United States
"for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"
[105]
cells: Theodor W. Hänsch
Germany
cells: 2006
John C. Mather
United States
"for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"
[106]
cells: George F. Smoot
United States
cells: 2007
Albert Fert
France
"for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance"
[107]
cells: Peter Grünberg
Germany
cells: 2008
Makoto Kobayashi
Japan
"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature"
[108]
cells: Toshihide Maskawa
Japan
cells: Yoichiro Nambu
Japan  United States
"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics"
[108]
cells: 2009
Charles K. Kao
Hong Kong  United Kingdom  United States
"for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication"
[109]
cells: Willard S. Boyle
Canada  United States
"for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor"
[109]
cells: George E. Smith
United States
cells: 2010
Andre Geim
Russia  United Kingdom  Netherlands
"for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"
[110]
cells: Konstantin Novoselov
Russia  United Kingdom
cells: 2011
Saul Perlmutter
United States
"for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae"
[111]
cells: Brian P. Schmidt
Australia  United States
cells: Adam G. Riess
United States
cells: 2012
Serge Haroche
France
"for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems."
[112]
cells: David J. Wineland
United States
cells: 2013
François Englert
Belgium
"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"
[113]
cells: Peter Higgs
United Kingdom
cells: 2014
Isamu Akasaki
Japan
"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources"
[114]
cells: Hiroshi Amano
Japan
cells: Shuji Nakamura
Japan  United States
cells: 2015
Takaaki Kajita
Japan
"for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass"
[115]
cells: Arthur B. McDonald
Canada
cells: 2016
David J. Thouless
United Kingdom  United States
"for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter"
[116]
cells: F. Duncan M. Haldane
United Kingdom
cells: John M. Kosterlitz
United Kingdom
cells: 2017
Rainer Weiss
Germany  United States
"for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves"
[117]
cells: Kip Thorne
United States
cells: Barry Barish
United States

Questions about this table:
originalText: who won the last nobel prize in physics
answer: answerTexts: Rainer Weiss
Kip Thorne
Barry Barish