Originally compiled by Scott Chase, Phil Gibbs, and Johan Wevers.
The following is a complete listing of Nobel Prize awards, from the first award in 1901. Prizes were not awarded in every year. The date in brackets is the approximate date of the work. The description following the names is an abbreviation of the official citation.
The Physics prize is announced near the beginning of October each year. One of the quickest ways to get the announcement is to watch the Nobel Foundation web site at http://nobelprize.org.
1901 [1895] Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen Discovery of X rays.
1902 [1896] Hendrik Antoon Lorentz Magnetism in radiation phenomena.
Pieter Zeeman
1903 [1896] Antoine Henri Bequerel Spontaneous radioactivity.
[1898] Pierre Curie
Marie Sklodowska-Curie
1904 [1894] Lord Rayleigh Density of gases and discovery of argon.
(a.k.a. John William Strutt)
1905 [1899] Pilipp Eduard Anton von Lenard Cathode rays.
1906 [1897] Joseph John Thomson Conduction of electricity by gases.
1907 Albert Abraham Michelson Precision meteorological investigations.
1908 Gabriel Lippman Reproducing colors photographically, based on the phenomenon of interference.
1909 [1901] Carl Ferdinand Braun Wireless telegraphy.
Guglielmo Marconi
1910 [1873] Johannes Diderik van der Waals Equation of state of fluids.
1911 [1896] Wilhelm Wien Laws of radiation of heat.
1912 [1909] Nils Gustaf Dalén Automatic gas flow regulators.
1913 [1911] Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Matter at low temperature.
1914 [1912] Max von Laue Crystal diffraction of X rays.
1915 [1913] William Henry Bragg X-ray analysis of crystal structure.
William Lawrence Bragg
1916 No award.
1917 [1911] Charles Glover Barkla Characteristic X-ray spectra of elements.
1918 [1900] Max Planck Energy quanta.
1919 [1913] Johannes Stark Splitting of spectral lines in electric fields.
1920 Charles-Edouard Guillaume Anomalies in nickel–steel alloys.
1921 [1905] Albert Einstein Photoelectric effect.
1922 [1913] Niels Bohr Structure of atoms.
1923 [1909] Robert Andrew Millikan Elementary charge of electricity.
1924 Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn X-ray spectroscopy.
1925 [1914] James Franck Impact of an electron on an atom.
Gustav Hertz
1926 Jean Baptiste Perrin Sedimentation equilibrium.
1927 [1924] Arthur Holly Compton Compton effect.
[1912] Charles Thomson Rees Wilson Invention of the cloud chamber.
1928 [1903] Owen Willans Richardson Thermionic phenomena, Richardson's Law.
1929 [1923] Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie Wave nature of electrons.
1930 [1928] Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman Scattering of light, Raman effect.
1931 No award.
1932 [1925] Werner Heisenberg Quantum Mechanics.
1933 [1926] Erwin Schrödinger Atomic theory.
[1928] Paul Dirac
1934 No award.
1935 [1932] James Chadwick The neutron.
1936 [1932] Carl Anderson The positron.
[1911] Victor Franz Hess Cosmic rays.
1937 [1925] Clinton Joseph Davisson Crystal diffraction of electrons.
George Paget Thomson
1938 [1935] Enrico Fermi New radioactive elements.
1939 [1929] Ernest Orlando Lawrence Invention of the cyclotron.
1940–1942 No award.
1943 [1933] Otto Stern Proton magnetic moment.
1944 [1935] Isador Isaac Rabi Magnetic resonance in atomic nuclei.
1945 [1924] Wolfgang Pauli The exclusion principle.
1946 [1925] Percy Williams Bridgman Production of extremely high pressures.
1947 [1924] Sir Edward Victor Appleton Physics of the upper atmosphere.
1948 [1932] Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett Cosmic ray showers in cloud chambers.
1949 [1935] Hideki Yukawa Prediction of mesons.
1950 [1947] Cecil Frank Powell Photographic emulsion for meson studies.
1951 [1932] Sir John Douglas Cockroft Artificial acceleration of atomic particles and transmutation of nuclei.
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton
1952 [1946] Felix Bloch Nuclear magnetic precision methods.
Edward Mills Purcell
1953 [1935] Frits Zernike Phase-contrast microscope.
1954 [1926] Max Born Fundamental research in quantum mechanics.
[1925] Walther Bothe Coincidence counters.
1955 [1947] Polykarp Kusch Electron magnetic moment.
[1947] Willis Eugene Lamb Hydrogen fine structure.
1956 [1948] William Shockley Transistors.
John Bardeen
Walter Houser Brattain
1957 Tsung Dao Lee Parity violation.
[1956] Chen Ning Yang
1958 [1934] Pavel Aleksejevic Cerenkov Interpretation of the Cerenkov effect.
[1937] Il'ja Mickajlovic Frank
Igor' Evgen'evic Tamm
1959 Owen Chamberlain The antiproton.
[1955] Emilio Gino Segre
1960 [1952] Donald Arthur Glaser The bubble chamber.
1961 [1953] Robert Hofstadter Electron scattering on nucleons.
Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer Resonant absorption of photons.
1962 [1941] Lev Davidovic Landau Theory of liquid helium.
1963 [1931] Eugene Wigner Fundamental symmetry principles.
[1949] Hans Jensen Nuclear shell structure.
Maria Goeppert Mayer
1964 Nikolai Basov Maser-Laser principle.
Alexander Prochorov
[1958] Charles Townes
1965 [1948] Richard Feynman Quantum electrodynamics.
Julian Schwinger
Sin-Itiro Tomonaga
1966 [1950] Alfred Kastler Study of hertzian resonance in atoms.
1967 [1938] Hans Albrecht Bethe Energy production in stars.
1968 [1955] Luis W. Alvarez Discovery of many-particle resonances.
1969 [1964] Murray Gell-Mann Quark model for particle classification.
1970 [1942] Hannes Alfvén Magneto-hydrodynamics in plasma physics.
[1932] Louis Néel Ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism.
1971 [1947] Dennis Gabor Principles of holography.
1972 [1957] John Bardeen Theory of superconductivity.
Leon Cooper
Robert Schrieffer
1973 [1960] Leo Esaki Tunneling in superconductors.
Ivar Giaever
[1962] Brian Josephson Super-current through tunnel barriers.
1974 [1974] Antony Hewish Discovery of pulsars.
[1958] Sir Martin Ryle Pioneering radioastronomy work.
1975 [1950] Aage Bohr Structure of the atomic nucleus.
Ben Mottelson
James Rainwater
1976 [1974] Burton Richter Discovery of the J/Psi particle.
Samual Chao Chung Ting
1977 [1958] Philip Warren Anderson Electronic structure of magnetic and disordered solids.
[1967] Nevill Francis Mott
John Hasbrouck Van Vleck
1978 [1932] Pyotr Kapitsa Liquefaction of helium.
[1965] Arno Penzias Cosmic microwave background radiation.
Robert Wilson
1979 [1961] Sheldon Glashow Electroweak theory, especially weak neutral currents.
[1967] Steven Weinberg
[1968] Abdus Salam
1980 [1964] James Cronin Discovery of CP violation in the asymmetric decay of neutral K mesons.
Val Fitch
1981 Kai Seigbahn High-resolution electron spectroscopy.
[1962] Nicolaas Bloembergen Laser spectroscopy.
Arthur Schawlow
1982 [1972] Kenneth Wilson Critical phenomena in phase transitions.
1983 [1935] Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Evolution of stars.
[1957] William Fowler
1984 [1970] Simon van der Meer Stochastic cooling for colliders.
[1983] Carlo Rubbia Discovery of W and Z particles.
1985 [1977] Klaus von Klitzing Discovery of (integer) quantum Hall effect.
1986 [1981] Gerd Binnig Scanning tunneling microscopy.
Heinrich Rohrer
[1932] Ernst August Friedrich Ruska Electron microscopy.
1987 [1986] Georg Bednorz High-temperature superconductivity.
Alex Müller
1988 [1962] Leon Max Lederman Discovery of the muon neutrino, leading to classification of particles into families.
Melvin Schwartz
Jack Steinberger
1989 Hans Georg Dehmelt Penning trap for charged particles.
Wolfgang Paul Paul trap for charged particles.
Norman Ramsey Control of atomic transitions by the separated oscillatory fields method.
1990 [1972] Jerome Isaac Friedman Deep inelastic scattering experiments leading to the discovery of quarks.
Henry Way Kendall
Richard Edward Taylor
1991 Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Order-disorder transitions in liquid crystals and polymers.
1992 Georges Charpak Multiwire proportional chamber.
1993 [1974] Russell Hulse Discovery of the first binary pulsar and subsequent tests of general relativity.
Joseph Taylor
1994 [1960] Bertram Brockhouse Neutron scattering experiments.
[1946] Clifford Shull
1995 [1975] Martin Perl Discovery of the tau lepton.
[1953] Frederick Reines Detection of the neutrino.
1996 David Lee Superfluidity in helium-3.
Douglas Osheroff
Robert Richardson
1997 [1985] Steven Chu Development of methods to trap and cool atoms with laser light.
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
William Phillips
1998 [1982] Robert Laughlin Discovery and theory of the fractional quantum Hall effect.
Horst Störmer
Daniel Tsui
1999 [1972] Gerard 't Hooft Development of a renormalisation scheme for non-abelian gauge theories.
Martin Veltman
2000 [1957] Herbert Kroemer Growing of heterostructures.
[1963] Zhores Alferov Semiconductor laser based on heterostructures.
[1958] Jack Kilby Invention of the integrated circuit.
2001 Eric Cornell Bose–Einstein condensation of alkali metals.
Carl Wieman
Wolfgang Ketterle
2002 Raymond Davis Jr Detection of cosmic neutrinos.
Masatosh Koshiba
Riccardo Giacconi Detection of cosmic X rays.
2003 Alexei Abrikosov Pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids.
[1950] Vitaly Ginzburg
[1970] Anthony Leggett
2004 [1973] David Gross Discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.
David Politzer
Frank Wilczek
2005 Roy Glauber Quantum theory of optical coherence.
John Hall Development of ultra-high precision measurements of light.
Theodor Hänsch
2006 John Mather Study of the early universe, and developing the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) experiment.
George Smoot
2007 Albert Fert Discovery of giant magnetoresistance.
Peter Grünberg
2008 Yoichiro Nambu Discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking.
Makoto Kobayashi Discovery of the origin of symmetry breaking.
Toshihide Maskawa
2009 Charles Kao Achievements concerning transmission of light in optical fibres.
Willard Boyle Invention of the charge-coupled device (CCD).
George Smith
2010 Andre Geim Experiments in graphene.
Konstantin Novoselov
2011 Saul Perlmutter Discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Brian Schmidt
Adam Riess
2012 Serge Haroche New experimental methods for studying individual quantum systems.
David Wineland
2013 François Englert Theory of the Higgs mechanism.
Peter Higgs
2014 Isamu Akasaki Invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes.
Hiroshi Amano
Shuji Nakamura
2015 Takaaki Kajita Discovery of neutrino oscillations.
Arthur McDonald
2016 David Thouless Discoveries involving topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.
F. Haldane
J. Kosterlitz
2017 Rainer Weiss Contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
Barry Barish
Kip Thorne
2018 Arthur Ashkin Inventions in the field of laser physics.
Gérard Mourou
Donna Strickland
2019 James Peebles Contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth's place in the cosmos.
Michel Mayor
Didier Queloz
2020 Roger Penrose The discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of general relativity.
Reinhard Genzel The discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.
Andrea Ghez
2021 Syukuro Manabe The physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.
Klaus Hasselmann
Giorgio Parisi The discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems, from atomic to planetary scales.