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Nobel Prize in Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics was Awarded to 222 Nobel Laureates from 1901 to 2022.

"The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- - -/ one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics ..."

(Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)

Physics was the prize area which Alfred Nobel mentioned first in his will. At the end of the nineteenth century, many people considered physics as the foremost of the sciences, and perhaps Nobel saw it this way as well. His own research was also closely tied to physics.

• 47 Physics Prizes have been given to one Laureate only.
• 5 Women have been awarded the Physics Prize so far.
• 1 Person,John Bardeen, has been awarded the Physics Prize twice, in 1956 and in 1972.
• 25 Years was the age of the youngest Physics Laureate ever, Sir William Lawrence Bragg, when he was awarded the 1915 Physics Prize together with his father.
• 96 Years was the age of the oldest Physics Laureate ever, Arthur Ashkin, when he was awarded the 2018 Physics Prize.

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• 2023: jointly to: [Pierre Agostini] (b. 1941) French physicist, [ Ferenc Krausz] (b. 1962) Hungarian-Austrian-German physicist and [ Anne L’Huillier] (b. 1958) French-Swedish physicist “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter".
• 2022: jointly to: Alain Aspect (b. 1947) French physicist, John F. Clauser (b. 1942) American physicist and Anton Zeilinger (b. 1945) Austrian physicist “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”
• 2021: awarded "for groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of complex systems" with one half jointly to Syukuro Manabe (b. 1931) Japanese American physicist, and Klaus Hasselmann (b. 1931) German physicist "for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming" and the other half to Giorgio Parisi (b. 1948) Italian physicist "for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales."
• 2020: divided, one half awarded to Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS (b. 1931), British astrophysicist, "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity", the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel (b. 1952). German astrophysicist, and Andrea Mia Ghez (b. 1965) American astronomer, "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy."
• 2019: Awarded "for contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth's place in the cosmos" with one half to Jim (Phillip James Edwin) Peebles OM FRS (b. 1935) Canadian-American physicist and theoretical cosmologist "for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology", the other half jointly to Michel G.E. Mayor (b. 1942) Swiss astrophysicist, and Didier Queloz (b. 1966) Swiss astronomer "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star."
• 2018: divided, one half awarded to Arthur Ashkin (1922-2020) American physicist "for his invention of 'optical tweezers' that grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells with their laser beam fingers. With this he was able to use the radiation pressure of light to move physical objects, 'an old dream of science fiction', and the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou (b. 1944) French-American physicist, and Donna Theo Strickland (b. 1959) Canadian physicist, for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics”
• 2017: divided, one half awarded to Rainer Weiss (b. 1932) American physicist, the other half jointly to Barry C. Barish (b. 1936) and Kip S. Thorne (b. 1940), American physicists "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves".
• 2016: divided, one half awarded to David J. Thouless (b. 1934) British and American condensed-matter physicist; the other half jointly to F. Duncan M. Haldane (b. 1951) and J. Michael Kosterlitz (b. 1942) British and American condensed matter physicists, "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter".
• 2015: jointly to: Takaaki Kajita, 梶田隆章 (b. 1959) Japanese physicist and Arthur "Art" Bruce McDonald (b . 1943) Canadian physicist, "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass"
• 2014: jointly to: Isamu Akasaki 赤崎 勇 (b. 1929) Japanese electric engineering scientist, to Hiroshi Amano 天野 浩 (b. 1960) Japanese physicist and to Shuji Nakamura 中村 修二 (b. 1954) Japanese American material scientist, "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".
• 2013: jointly to: François Englert (b. 1932) Belgian physicist, and to: Peter W. Higgs (b. 1929) British physicist, "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: jointly to: Serge Haroche (b. 1944) French physicist, and to David J. Wineland (b. 1944) American physicist, "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems".
• 2011: one half to: Saul Perlmutter (b. 1959) American astrophysicist, and the other half jointly to: Brian P. Schmidt (b. 1967) American-born Australian astrophysicist, and to: Adam G. Riess (b. 1969) American astrophysicist, "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae".
• 2010: jointly to Andre Geim (b. 1958) Russian-born Dutch-British physicist, and Sir Konstantin Novoselov (b. 1974) Russian-British physicist "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene"
• 2009: divided, one half awarded to Charles Kuen Kao (b. 1933) Chinese physicist, "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication", the other half jointly to Willard S. Boyle (1924 - 2011) Canadian physicist, and George E. Smith (b. 1930) American physicist, "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor".
• 2008: divided, one half awarded to Yoichiro Nambu (1921-2015) Japanese-born American physicist "for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics", the other half jointly to Makoto Kobayashi (b. 1944) Japanese physicist, and Toshihide Maskawa (b. 1940) Japanese physicist, "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature".
• 2007: jointly to Albert Fert (b. 1938) French physicist, and Peter Grünberg (b. 1939} Czech-born German physicist, "for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance"
• 2006: jointly to John C. Mather (b. 1946) American physicist, and George F. Smoot (b. 1945) American physicist, "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"
• 2005: divided, one half awarded to Roy J. Glauber (b. 1925) American physicist "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence", the other half jointly to John L. Hall (b. 1934) American physicist, and Theodor W. Hänsch (b. 1941) German physicist, "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique".
• 2004: jointly to David J. Gross (b. 1941) American physicist, to H. David Politzer (b. 1940) American physicist, and to Frank Wilczek (b. 1951) American physicist, "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction".
• 2003: jointly to Alexei A. Abrikosov (b. 1928) Russian-American physicist, to Vitaly L. Ginzburg (1916 - 2009) Russian physicist, and to Anthony J. Leggett (b. 1938) American physicist "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids".
• 2002: divided, one half jointly to Raymond Davis Jr. (1914 - 2006) American physicist. and Masatoshi Koshiba (b. 1926) Japanese physicist, "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos" and the other half to Riccardo Giacconi (b. 1931) Italian-born American physicist "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources".
• 2001: jointly to Eric A. Cornell (b. 1961) American physicist, to Wolfgang Ketterle (b. 1946) German-born American physicist, and to Carl E. Wieman (b. 1951) American physicist "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates".
• 2000: awarded "for basic work on information and communication technology" with one half jointly to Zhores I. Alferov (1930 - 2019) Russian physicist, and Herbert Kroemer (b. 1928) German physicist, "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics", and the other half to Jack S. Kilby (1923 - 2005) German-American applied physicist, "for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit".
• 1999: jointly to Gerardus 't Hooft (b. 1946) Dutch physicist, and Martinus J.G. Veltman (b. 1931) American physicist, "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"
• 1998: jointly to Robert B. Laughlin (b. 1950) American physicist, to Horst L. Störmer (b. 1949) German-born American physicist, and to Daniel C. Tsui (b. 1939) Chinese-born American physicist, "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations".
• 1997: jointly to Steven Chu (b. 1948) American Physicist, to Claude Cohen-Tannoudji (b. 1933) French physicist, and to William D. Phillips (b. 1948) American Physicist, "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light".
• 1996: jointly to David M. Lee (b. 1931) American physicist , to Douglas D. Osheroff (b. 1945) American physicist, and to Robert C. Richardson (1937 - 2013) American physicist, "for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3".
• 1995: awarded "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics" jointly with one half to Martin L. Perl (1927 - 2014) American physicist, "for the discovery of the tau lepton", and with one half to Frederick Reines (1918 - 1998) American physicist, "for the detection of the neutrino".
• 1994: awarded "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter" jointly with one half to Bertram N. Brockhouse (1918 - 2003) Canadian physicist, "for the development of neutron spectroscopy", and with one half to Clifford G. Shull (1915 - 2001) American physicist, "for the development of the neutron diffraction technique".
• 1993: jointly to Russell A. Hulse (b. 1950) American astrophysics, and Joseph H. Taylor Jr. (b. 1941) American astrophysics, "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"
• 1992: Georges Charpak (1924 - 2010) French , "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber"
• 1991: Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (1932 - 2007) French chemical physicist, "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".
• 1990: jointly to: Jerome I. Friedman (b. 1930) American physicist, to Henry W. Kendall (1926 -1999) American physicist, and to: Richard E. Taylor (b. 1929) Canadian-born American physicist, "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".
• 1989: divided, one half awarded to Norman F. Ramsey (1915 - 2011) American physicist, "for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks", the other half jointly to: Hans G. Dehmelt (b. 1922) German-born American physicist, and to Wolfgang Paul (1913 - 1933) German physicist, "for the development of the ion trap technique".
• 1988: jointly to: Leon M. Lederman (b. 1922) American physicist, to Melvin Schwartz (1932 - 2006) American physicist, and to Jack Steinberger (b. 1921) German physicist, "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino".
• 1987: jointly to J. Georg Bednorz (b.1950) German physicist, and K. Alexander Müller (1927-2023) Swiss physicist, "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials"
• 1986: divided, one half awarded to Ernst Ruska (1906 - 1988) German physicist, "for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope", the other half jointly to: Gerd Binnig (b. 1947) German physicist, and Heinrich Rohrer (1933 - 2013) Swiss physicist, "for their design of the scanning tunneling microscope".
• 1985: Klaus von Klitzing (b. 1943) German physicist, "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect".
• 1984: jointly to Carlo Rubbia (b. 1934) Italian particle physicist, and Simon van der Meer (1925 - 2011) Dutch particle physicist, "for their decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction".
• 1983: divided equally between Subramanyan Chandrasekhar (1910 - 1995) Indian American astrophysicist, "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars", and William Alfred Fowler (1911 - 1995) American nuclear physicist, later astrophysicist, "for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe".
• 1982: Kenneth G. Wilson (1936 - 2013) American physicist, "for his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions".
• 1981: jointly, half prize to: Nicolaas Bloembergen (b. 1920) Dutch-American physicist, and to: Arthur Leonard Schawlow (1921 – 1999) American physicist, "for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy"; and the other half to: Kai M. Siegbahn (1918 – 2007) Swedish physicist, "for his contribution to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy"
• 1980: jointly to James Watson Cronin (b. 1931) American physicist, and Val Logsdon Fitch (b. 1923) American physicist, "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"
• 1979: jointly to: Sheldon Lee Glashow (b. 1932) American physicist, to Abdus Salam (1926 - 1996) Pakistani theoretical physicist, and to Steven Weinberg (b. 1933) American physicist, "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".
• 1978: One half awarded to: Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894 - 1984), Russian Physicist, "for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics", the other half jointly to: Arno Allan Penzias (b. 1933) American astrophysicist, & Robert Woodrow Wilson (b. 1936) American astrophysicist "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation".
• 1977: jointly to: Philip Warren Anderson (b. 1923) American physicist, to Sir Nevill Francis Mott (1905 - 1996) British physicist, and to John Hasbrouck van Vleck (1899 - 1980) American physicist and mathematician, "for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems".
• 1976: jointly to: Burton Richter (b. 1931) American physicist. and Samuel Chao Chung Ting (b. 1936) American physicist, "for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind"
• 1975: jointly to: Aage Niels Bohr (1922 - 2009) Danish nuclear physicist, to Ben Roy Mottelson (b. 1926) American-born Danish nuclear physicist, and to Leo James Rainwater (1917 - 1986) American physicist, "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".
• 1974: jointly to Sir Martin Ryle (1918 - 1984) British astrophysicist, and Antony Hewish (b. 1924) American astrophysicist, "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"
• 1973: divided, one half jointly to Leo Esaki Japanese physicist (b. 1925) , and Ivar Giaever (1929) Norwegian-American physicist and biophysicist, "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively", and the other half to Brian David Josephson (1940) British physicist, "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 effects".
• 1972: jointly to: John Bardeen (1908 - 1991) American physicist and electrical engineer, to Leon Neil Cooper (b. 1930) American physicist, and to John Robert Schrieffer (b. 1931) American physicist, "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory".
• 1971: Dennis Gabor (1900 - 1979) Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist, "for his invention and development of the holographic method".
• 1970: divided equally between: Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (1908 - 1995) Swedish physicist, "for fundamental work and discoveries in magnetohydro-dynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics" and to Louis Eugène Félix Néel (1904 - 2000) French physicist, "for fundamental work and discoveries concerning antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism which have led to important applications in solid state physics".
• 1969: Murray Gell-Mann (b. 1929) American physicist, "for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions"
• 1968: Luis Walter Alvarez (1911 - 1988) American physicist, "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"
• 1967: Hans Albrecht Bethe (1906 – 2005) German-American versatile theoretical physicist with important contributions to quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics, solid-state physics and astrophysics: "for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars".
• 1966: Alfred Kastler (1902 - 1984) French physicist, "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms".
• 1965: jointly to: Sin-Itiro Tomonaga (1906 - 1979) Japanese physicist, to Julian Schwinger (1918 - 1994) American physicist, and to Richard P. Feynman (1918 - 1988) American physicist, "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles".
• 1964: divided, one half awarded to Charles Hard Townes (b. 1915) American physicist, the other half jointly to Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov (1922 - 2001) Russian physicist, and Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov (1916 - 2002) Russian physicist, "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".
• 1963: divided, half the prize to: Eugene Paul Wigner (1902 – 1995) Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician, "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"; the other half jointly to Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906 – 1972) German-born American theoretical physicist, and to J. Hans D. Jensen (1907 – 1973) German nuclear physicist, "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure".
• 1962: Lev Davidovich Landau (1908 – 1968) Russian Physicist and mathematician, "for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium".
• 1961: divided equally between: Robert Hofstadter (1915 - 1960) American physicist, "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons", and Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer (1929 - 2011) German physicist, "for his researches concerning the resonance absorption of gamma radiation and his discovery in this connection of the effect which bears his name".
• 1960: Donald Arthur Glaser (1926 - 2013) American physicist, "for the invention of the bubble chamber".
• 1959: jointly to: Emilio Gino Segrè (1905 - 1989) Italian-American physicist, and Owen Chamberlain (1920 - 2006) American physicist, "for their discovery of the antiproton"
• 1958: jointly to: Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov (1904 - 1990) Russian physicist, to Il´ja Mikhailovich Frank (1908 - 1990) Russian physicist, and to Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm (1895 - 1971) Russian physicist, "for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect".
• 1957: jointly to: Chen-Ning Yang (b. 1922) Chinese-born American physicist, and Tsung-Dao (T.D.) Lee (b. 1926) Chinese-born American physicist, "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles"
• 1956: jointly to: William Bradford Shockley (1910 - 1989) American physicist and inventor, to John Bardeen (1908 - 1991) American physicist & electrical engineer, and to Walter Houser Brattain (1902 - 1987) American physicist, "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect".
• 1955: divided equally between: Willis Eugene Lamb (1913 - 2008) American physicist, "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum" and Polykarp Kusch (1911 - 1993) American physicist, "for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron".
• 1954: divided equally between: Max Born (1882 - 1970) German-born British physicist, "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction", and Walther Bothe (1891 - 1957). German physicist, "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith".
• 1953: Frits (Frederik) Zernike (1888 - 1966) Dutch physicist, "for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope".
• 1952:: jointly to: Felix Bloch (1905 – 1983) Swiss-born American nuclear physicist, and to: Edward Mills Purcell (1912 – 1997) American nuclear physicist, "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith".
• 1951: jointly to: Sir John Douglas Cockcroft OM KCB CBE FRS (1897 – 1967 ) British nuclear physicist & Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903 – 1955) Irish nuclear physicist, "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles".
• 1950: Cecil Frank Powell (1903 - 1969) British physicist, "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method".
• 1949: Hideki Yukawa (1907 - 1981) Japanese physicist , "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces".
• 1948: Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897 – 1974) British particle physicist, "for his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation".
• 1947: Sir Edward Victor Appleton (1892 - 1965) British physicist, "for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer".
• 1946: Percy Williams Bridgman (1882 – 1961) American physicist, "for the invention of an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures, and for the discoveries he made therewith in the field of high pressure physics".
• 1945: Wolfgang Pauli (1900 – 1958) Austrian born Swiss physicist of Jewish descent, "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle".
• 1944: Isidor Isaac Rabi (1898 – 1988) Galicia born American physicist of Jewish descent, "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei".
• 1943: Otto Stern (1888 – 1969) American-German physicist of Jewish descent, "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton".
• 1942: Not awarded.
• 1941: Not awarded.
• 1940: Not awarded.
• 1939: Ernest Orlando Lawrence (1901 – 1958) American physicist, "for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements".
• 1938: Enrico Fermi (1901 – 1954) Italian-born, American physicist frequently referred to as "one of the two fathers of the atomic bomb", "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".
• 1937: jointly to: Clinton Joseph Davisson (1881 - 1958) American physicist. and Sir George Paget Thomson (1892 - 1975) British physicist , "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"
• 1936: divided equally between: Victor Franz Hess (1883 - 1964) Austrian-American physicist, "for his discovery of cosmic radiation" and Carl David Anderson (1905 - 1991) American physicist, "for his discovery of the positron".
• 1935: Sir James Chadwick (1891 – 1974) English physicist, "for the discovery of the neutron".
• 1934 Not awarded.
• 1933: jointly to: Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902 – 1984) English theoretical physicist, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory".
• 1932: Werner Heisenberg (1901 – 1976) German physicist, "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen".
• 1931: Not awarded.
• 1930: Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888 - 1970) Tamil-Indian physicist, "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect ". He was the first Asian and first non-White to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences.
• 1929: Prince Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie (1892 – 1987) French physicist, "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons".
• 1928: Owen Willans Richardson (1879 - 1959) British physicist, "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him".
• 1927: jointly to: Arthur Holly Compton (1892 – 1962) American atomic physicist, "for his discovery of the effect named after him"; and to: Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (1869 – 1959) British atomic physicist, "for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour".
• 1926: Jean Baptiste Perrin (1870 – 1942) French molecular physicist, "for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium".
• 1925: Jointly to: Gustav Ludwig Hertz (1887 – 1975) German experimental physicist, "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom".
• 1924: Manne Siegbahn (1886 – 1978) Swedish physicist, Georg Siegbahn, "for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy".
• 1923: Robert Andrews Millikan (1868 – 1953) American experimental physicist, "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect".
• 1922: Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885 – 1962) Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics. Received the Nobel Prize "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them."
• 1921: Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. Often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history.Received the Nobel Prize "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect". The latter was pivotal in establishing the quantum theory within physics.
• 1920: Charles Edouard Guillaume (1861 – 1938) Swiss physycist, "in recognition of the service he had rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel steel alloys."
• 1919: Johannes Stark (1874-1957) German Nazi Physicist "for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields". In 1947, following the defeat of Germany in World War II, Stark was classified as a "Major Offender" and received a sentence of four years' imprisonment (later suspended) by a denazification court.
• 1918: Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858 – 1947) German physicist, founder of the quantum theory, and thus one of the most important physicists of the twentieth century, "in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta".
• 1917: Charles Glover Barkla (1877 – 1944) British physicist, "for his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements".
• 1916: Not awarded.
• 1915: jointly to: Sir William Henry Bragg (1862 – 1942) English physicist, chemist, mathematician, and to his son Sir William Lawrence Bragg (1890 – 1971) Australian-born British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays".
• 1914: Max von Laue (1879 – 1960) was a German physicist, "for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals".
• 1913: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853 – 1926) Dutch physicist, "for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium".
• 1912: Nils Gustaf Dalén (1869 – 1937) Swedish industrialist and inventor, for his "invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys".
• 1911: Wilhelm Wien (1864 – 1928) German physicist, "for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat."
• 1910: Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837 – 1923) Dutch theoretical physicist and thermodynamicist, "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids".
• 1909: Jointly to: Guglielmo Marconi (1874 – 1937) Italian inventor, and to Karl Ferdinand Braun (1850 – 1918) German inventor & physicist, "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy".
• 1908: Gabriel Lippmann (1845 – 1921) Franco-Luxembourgish physicist and inventor, "for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference".
• 1907: Albert Abraham Michelson (1852 – 1931) American physicist, "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid".
• 1906: Joseph John Thomson (1856 – 1940) English physicist, "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases".
• '1905:' Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard - German physicist, won Nobel prize for his remarkable work on cathode rays and the discovery of their many properties.
• 1904: Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt) (1842 – 1919) English physicist who discovered the element argon, "for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies".
• 1903: Jointly to: Marie Curie, née Sklodowska, Polish–French physicist–chemist. Pioneering researcher of radioactivity. First person honored with two Nobel Prizes — in physics (1903) and later in chemistry (1911), "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel".
• 1902: jointly to: Pieter Zeeman (1865 - 1943) Dutch physicists, "in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena".
• 1901 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1845 – 1923) German physicis, "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him".