| Year | Name | Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| 1901 | W. Röntgen | For the discovery of the rays named after him (X-rays). |
| 1902 | H. Lorentz, P. Zeeman |
For research on the influence of magnetism on radiation processes. |
| 1903 | A. Becquerel | For the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. |
| 1903 | P. Curie, M. Skłodowska-Curie | For research on radioactive radiation. |
| 1904 | Lord Rayleigh | For research on the density of gaseous elements and the discovery of argon in the course of it. |
| 1905 | P. Lenard | For research on cathode rays. |
| 1906 | J. J. Thomson | For theoretical and experimental research on the passage of electricity through gases. |
| 1907 | A. Michelson | For the creation of precision optical instruments and for the spectroscopic and metrological research carried out with them. |
| 1908 | G. Lippmann | For the development of methods of colour photography. |
| 1909 | G. Marconi, K. Braun | For the development of wireless telegraphy. |
| 1910 | J. van der Waals | For his work containing the equations of state of gases and liquids. |
| 1911 | W. Wien | For the discovery of the laws of thermal radiation. |
| 1912 | N. Dalén | For the invention of the automatic regulator used for lighting lighthouses. |
| 1913 | H. Kamerlingh Onnes | For research on the properties of bodies at low temperatures and for the production of liquid helium. |
| 1914 | M. von Laue | For the discovery of the diffraction of X-rays in crystals. |
| 1915 | W. H. Bragg,W. L. Bragg | For important contributions to the study of the structure of crystals by means of X-rays. |
| 1917 | C. Barkla | For the discovery of the characteristic X-rays. |
| 1918 | M. Planck | For the discovery of the quantum of action. |
| 1919 | J. Stark | For the discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and of the splitting of spectral lines in an electric field. |
| 1920 | C. Guillaume | For the discovery of the invar and elinvar alloys. |
| 1921 | A. Einstein | For important research in physics and mathematics, and especially for the discovery of the laws of the photoelectric effect. |
| 1922 | N. Bohr | For his services to the study of the structure of the atom. |
| 1923 | R. Millikan | For research on the elementary charge and the photoelectric effect. |
| 1924 | M. Siegbahn | For research and discoveries in the field of X-ray spectroscopy. |
| 1925 | J. Franck, G. Hertz | For the discovery of the laws of the collision of electrons with atoms. |
| 1926 | J. Perrin | For research on the structure of matter and the discovery of sedimentation equilibrium. |
| 1927 | A. Compton | For the discovery of the effect named after him (the Compton effect). |
| 1927 | C. Wilson | For the discovery of methods of vapour condensation and the invention of an instrument for observing the tracks of charged particles (the Wilson cloud chamber). |
| 1928 | O. Richardson | For research on thermionic emission, and above all for the discovery of the law named after him. |
| 1929 | L. de Broglie | For the discovery of the wave nature of the electron. |
| 1930 | C. Raman | For the discovery of the Raman scattering of light. |
| 1932 | W. Heisenberg | For the creation of quantum mechanics in matrix form. |
| 1933 | E. Schrödinger, P. Dirac | For the discovery of new forms of atomic theory. |
| 1935 | J. Chadwick | For the discovery of the neutron. |
| 1936 | C. Anderson | For the discovery of the positron |
| 196 | V. Hess | For the discovery of cosmic rays. |
| 1937 | C. Davisson, G. P. Thomson | For the discovery of the diffraction of electrons in crystals. |
| 1938 | E. Fermi | For the discovery of artificial radioactivity produced by bombardment with slow neutrons. |
| 1939 | E. Lawrence | For the construction and improvement of the cyclotron. |
| 1943 | O. Stern | For the discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton. |
| 1944 | I. Rabi | For the use of the resonance method to measure the magnetic moments of atomic nuclei. |
| 1945 | W. Pauli | For the discovery of the principle named after him (the Pauli principle). |
| 1946 | P. Bridgman | For research and discoveries in high-pressure physics. |
| 1947 | E. Appleton | For research on the ionosphere, and above all for the discovery of the so-called "Appleton layer". |
| 1948 | P. Blackett | For improvements to the Wilson cloud chamber and for discoveries in the physics of cosmic rays. |
| 1949 | H. Yukawa | For the prediction of mesons. |
| 1950 | C. Powell | For the development of photographic methods of studying nuclear processes and for the discovery of mesons. |
| 1951 | J. Cockcroft, E. Walton | For the transmutation of elements by artificially accelerated particles. |
| 1952 | F. Bloch,E. Purcell | For the discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance. |
| 1953 | F. Zernike | For the discovery of the phase-contrast method and the invention of the phase-contrast microscope. |
| 1954 | M. Born | For his work in quantum mechanics. |
| 1954 | W. Bothe | For the use of the coincidence method to analyse cosmic radiation. |
| 1955 | W. Lamb, P. Kusch | For work on the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron. |
| 1956 | W. Shockley, J. Bardeen, W. Brattain | For research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect. |
| 1957 | T. Lee, C. Yang | For fundamental research on the laws of parity, which led to important discoveries in elementary-particle physics. |
| 1958 | P. A. Cherenkov, I. E. Tamm, I. M. Frank | For the discovery and explanation of the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect. |
| 1959 | E. Segrè, O. Chamberlain | For the discovery of the antiproton. |
| 1960 | D. Glaser | For the invention of the bubble chamber |
| 1961 | R. Hofstadter | For fundamental research on the scattering of electrons by atomic nuclei and the discovery of the structure of the nucleons. |
| 1961 | R. Mössbauer | For research on the resonance absorption of gamma radiation and the discovery of the effect named after him (the Mössbauer effect). |
| 1962 | L. D. Landau | For pioneering research on the theory of condensed matter, and especially of liquid helium. |
| 1963 | E. Wigner | For contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and of elementary particles, and especially for the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles. |
| 1963 | H. Jensen, M. Goeppert-Mayer | For discoveries concerning the shell structure of the nucleus. |
| 1964 | C. Townes, N. G. Basov, A. M. Prokhorov | For fundamental research in quantum electronics, which led to the creation of oscillators and amplifiers of a new type - masers and lasers. |
| 1965 | S. Tomonaga, J. Schwinger, R. Feynman | For fundamental contributions to quantum electrodynamics, of great importance for elementary-particle physics. |
| 1966 | A. Kastler | For the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian oscillations in atoms. |
| 1967 | H. Bethe | For contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, and especially for the discovery of the cycle of thermonuclear reactions that is the source of the energy of the stars. |
| 1968 | L. Alvarez | For contributions to elementary-particle physics, and above all for the discovery of a large number of resonances. |
| 1969 | M. Gell-Mann | For discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions. |
| 1970 | H. Alfvén | For fundamental discoveries in magnetohydrodynamics and its application to plasma physics. |
| 1970 | L. Néel | For fundamental work on antiferromagnetism and ferromagnetism that is widely used in solid-state physics. |
| 1971 | D. Gabor | For the creation of holography. |
| 1972 | J. Bardeen, L. Cooper, J. Schrieffer | For the development of the theory of superconductivity. |
| 1973 | L. Esaki, I. Giaever, B. Josephson | For discoveries concerning tunnelling phenomena in solids. |
| 1974 | M. Ryle | For pioneering work in astronomy, and especially for the work on aperture synthesis. |
| 1974 | A. Hewish | For the discovery of pulsars. |
| 1975 | A. Bohr, B. Mottelson, J. Rainwater | For the discovery of the connection between collective motion and the motion of a single particle in the atomic nucleus, and for the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus built on that connection. |
| 1976 | B. Richter, S. Ting | For the discovery of the psi particles. |
| 1977 | P. Anderson, N. Mott, J. van Vleck | For fundamental theoretical research on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems. |
| 1978 | P. L. Kapitza | For discoveries in low-temperature physics. |
| 1978 | R. W. Wilson, A. Penzias | For the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. |
| 1979 | S. Weinberg, S. Glashow, A. Salam | For fundamental contributions to the theory that unifies the weak and the electromagnetic interactions. |
| 1980 | J. Cronin, V. Fitch | For the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K mesons. |
| 1981 | A. Schawlow, N. Bloembergen | For contributions to the development of laser spectroscopy. |
| 1981 | K. Siegbahn | For contributions to the development of electron spectroscopy. |
| 1982 | K. Wilson | For the creation of the theory of critical phenomena. |
| 1983 | S. Chandrasekhar | For theoretical research on the physical processes that play an important part in the structure and evolution of the stars. |
| 1983 | W. Fowler | For theoretical and experimental research on the nuclear reactions of importance for the formation of the chemical elements of the Universe. |
| 1984 | C. Rubbia, Simon van der Meer | For the decisive contribution to the large project whose completion led to the discovery of the W and Z field quanta — the carriers of the weak interaction. |
| 1985 | K. von Klitzing | For the discovery of the quantum Hall effect. |
| 1986 | E. Ruska | For his work on the electron microscope. |
| 1986 | G. Binnig, H. Rohrer | For the invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope. |
| 1987 | G. Bednorz, K. Müller | For the important breakthrough in physics made by the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials. |
| 1988 | L. Lederman, M. Schwartz, J. Steinberger | For the neutrino beam method and for the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino. |
| 1989 | N. Ramsey | For the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks. |
| 1989 | H. Dehmelt, W. Paul | For the development of a method for trapping single ions. |
| 1990 | J. Friedman, H. Kendall, R. Taylor | For pioneering research on the deep inelastic scattering of electrons by protons and bound neutrons, of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics. |
| 1991 | Pierre-Gilles de Gennes | For discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalised to liquid crystals and polymers. |
| 1992 | G. Charpak | For the discovery and creation of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber. |
| 1993 | R. Hulse, J. Taylor Jr | For the discovery of a new type of pulsar, which opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation. |
| 1994 | B. Brockhouse | For the creation of neutron spectroscopy. |
| 1994 | C. Shull | For the creation of the neutron diffraction method. |
| 1995 | M. Perl | For the discovery of the tau lepton. |
| 1995 | F. Reines | For the experimental detection of the neutrino. |
| 1996 | D. Lee, D. Osheroff, R. Richardson | For the discovery of superfluidity in helium-3. |
| 1997 | S. Chu, C. Cohen-Tannoudji, W. Phillips | For the creation of methods of cooling and trapping atoms with a laser beam. |
| 1998 | R. Laughlin, H. Störmer, D. Tsui | For the discovery of a new form of quantum fluid (at low temperatures and in a strong magnetic field) with particles that have new properties, in particular a fractional electric charge. |
| 1999 | G. 't Hooft, M. Veltman | For elucidating the quantum structure of the electroweak interactions. |
| 2000 | Zh. I. Alferov, H. Kroemer | For developments in semiconductor technology. |
| 2000 | J. Kilby | For research on integrated circuits. |
| 2001 | E. Cornell, W. Ketterle, C. Wieman | For achievements in the study of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases and for the early fundamental research on the properties of the condensates. |
| 2002 | R. Davis Jr, M. Koshiba | For research in astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos. |
| 2002 | R. Giacconi | For research in astrophysics that led to the discovery of cosmic sources of X-ray radiation. |
| 2003 | A. A. Abrikosov, V. L. Ginzburg, A. Leggett | For the creation of the theory of type-II superconductivity and of the theory of superfluidity in liquid helium-3. |
| 2004 | D. Gross, D. Politzer, F. Wilczek | For the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction. |
| 2005 | R. Glauber | For contributions to the quantum theory of optical coherence. |
| 2005 | J. Hall, T. Hänsch | For contributions to the development of high-precision laser spectroscopy and of the technique for calculating the light shift precisely in optical frequency standards. |
| 2006 | J. Mather, G. Smoot | For the discovery of the anisotropy and the black-body form of the energy spectrum of the cosmic background radiation. |
| 2007 | A. Fert, P. Grünberg | For the discovery of giant magnetoresistance. |
| 2008 | Y. Nambu | For the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking in elementary-particle physics. |
| 2008 | M. Kobayashi, T. Maskawa | For the discovery of the origin of the symmetry breaking that made it possible to predict the existence in nature of at least three families of quarks. |
| 2009 | Willard Boyle, George Smith | For the invention of a semiconductor circuit for recording images — the CCD sensor |
| 2009 | Charles Kuen Kao | For groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication |
| 2010 | Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov | For groundbreaking experiments on the two-dimensional material graphene |
| 2011 | Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, Adam Riess | For the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae |
| 2012 | Serge Haroche, David Wineland | For the creation of breakthrough techniques for manipulating quantum systems, which made it possible to measure and control individual quantum systems |