Nobel prize winners in Physics (1950-2016)

2016
David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter

2015
Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass

2014
Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources

2013
François Englert and Peter Higgs for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles

2007
Albert Firt and Peter Grünberg for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance

2006
John Mather and George Smoot for the discovery of the anisotropic nature of cosmic background radiation

2005
Roy Glauber for contributions to the theory of optical coherence
John Hall and Theodore Hansch for laser based precision spectroscopy

2004
David Gross, H.David Politzer and Frank Wilczek for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction

2003
Alexei Abrikosov, Vitali Ginsburg and Anthony Leggett for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids

2002
Raymond Davis Jr and Masatoshi Koshiba for pioneering contributions to astrophysics
Riccardo Giaconni for pioneering contributions to astrophysics leading to the discovery of cosmic X ray sources

2001
Eric Cornell, Wolfgang Kertterle and Carl Weiman for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms

2000
Zhores Alferov and Herbert Kroemer for developing semiconductor heterostructures
Jack Kilby for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit

1999
Geradus T'Hooft and Martinus Veltman for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics

1998
Robert Laughlin, Horst Stormer and Daniel Tsui for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations

1997
Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William Phillips for the development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light

1996
David Lee, Douglas Osheroff and Robert Richardson for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3

1995
Martin Perl for the discovery of the tau lepton.
Frederick Reines for the detection of the neutrino.

1994
Betram Brockhous for the development of neutron spectroscopy
Clifford Shull for the development of the neutron diffraction technique.

1993
Russel Hulse and Joseph Taylor Jr for the discovery of a new type of pulsar

1992
Georges Charpak for his invention and development of particle detectors

1991
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter

1990
Jerome Friedman, Henry Kendall and Richard Taylor for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons

1989
Norman Ramsey for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks.
Hans Dehmelt and Wolfgang Paul for the development of the ion trap technique

1988
Leon Lederman, Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino

1987
J.Georg Bendnorz and K. Alexander Müller for a breakthrough in the study of superconductivity in ceramic materials

1986
Ernst Ruska for the design of the first electron microscope
Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer for their design of the scanning tunnelling microscope

1985
Klaus von Klitzing for the discovery of the quantised Hall effect

1984
Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer for contributions to the project that led to the discovery of the W and Z particles

1983
Subramanyan Chandrasekhar for studies of physical processes important in the structure and evolution of stars
William Fowler for studies of nuclear reactions important in the formation of chemical elements in the universe

1982
Kenneth Wilson for his theory of critical phenomena in phase transitions

1981
Nicolaas Bloembergen and Arther Schawlow for the development of laser spectroscopy
Kai Siegbahn for contributions to the development of high resolution electron spectroscopy

1980
James Cronin and Val Fitch for the discovery of fundamental symmetry in the decay of neutral K mesons

1979
Sheldon Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg for contributions to the theory of unified weak and electromagnetic interactions between fundamental particles

1978
Pyotr Kapitsa for discoveries in the area of low temperature physics
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson for the discovery of the cosmic background radiation

1977
Philip Anderson, Nevil Mott and John van Vleck for work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems

1976
Burton Richter and Samuel Ting for pioneering work in the discovery of a new kind of heavy elementary particle

1975
Aage Bohr, Ben Mottleson and James Rainwater for the development of a theory about the stricture of the atomic nucleus

1974
Martin Ryle and Anthony Hewish for pioneering work in astrophysics including the discovery of pulsars

1973
Leon Esaki and Ivar Giaever for the discovery of the tunnelling effect in semiconductors
Brian Josephson for the discovery of the Josephson effect

1972
John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and J.Robert Schrieffer for the development of the BCS theory of superconductivity

1971
Denis Gabor for invention and development of holography

1970
Hannes Alfvén for fundamental work in magneto- hydrodynamics
Louis Néel for fundamental work in antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism

1969
Murray Gell-Mann for discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles

1968
Luis Alvarez for discoveries in particle physics

1967
Hans Bethe for discoveries concerning the energy production in stars

1966
Alfred Kastler for discovering optical methods for the study of hertzian resonances in atoms

1965
Sin-Itro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman for fundamental work in electrodynamics

1964
Charles Townes, Nicolay Basov and Aleksandr Prokhorov for fundamental work in quantum electronics

1963
Eugene Wigner for contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and fundamental particles
Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans Jensen for discoveries about nuclear shell structure

1962
Lev Landau for pioneering theories of condensed matter

1961
Robert Hofstadter for pioneering studies of electron scattering
Rudolf Mössbauer for the discovery of the Mössbauer effect

1960
Donald Glaser for the invention of the bubble chamber

1959
Emilio Segrč and Owen Chamberlain for the discovery of the anti proton

1958
Pavel Cerenkov, Il'ja Frank and Igor Tamm for the discovery of the Cernekov effect

1957
Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee for work on parity laws

1956
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain for discovery of the transistor effect

1955
Willis Lamb for discoveries in the fine structure of the spectrum of hydrogen

1954
Max Born for fundamental research in quantum mechanics
Walter Bothe for the coincidence method

1953
Frits Zernicke for the invention of the phase contrast microscope

1952
Felix Block and Edward Purcell for new methods of nuclear precision measurements

1951
John Cockroft and Ernest Walton for transmutation of nuclei by artificially accelerated particles


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