Many Nobel Prizes have been awarded for nuclear research and instrumentation. The field has spun off: particle physics, nuclear astrophysics, nuclear power reactors, nuclear medicine, and nuclear weapons. Understanding how the nucleus works and applying that knowledge to technology has been one of the most significant accomplishments of twentieth century scientific research. Each prize was awarded for physics unless otherwise noted.
| Name(s) |
Discovery |
Year |
| Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie, and Marie Curie |
Discovered spontaneous radioactivity |
1903 |
| Ernest Rutherford |
Work on the disintegration of the elements and chemistry of radioactive elements |
1908 (chem) |
| Marie Curie |
Discovery of radium and polonium |
1911 (chem) |
| Frederick Soddy |
Work on chemistry of radioactive substances including the origin and nature of radioactive isotopes |
1921 (chem) |
| Francis Aston |
Discovery of isotopes in many non-radioactive elements, also enunciated the whole-number rule of atomic masses |
1922 (chem) |
| Charles Wilson |
development of the cloud chamber for detecting charged particles |
1927 |
| Harold Urey |
discovery of heavy hydrogen (deuterium) |
1934 (chem) |
| Frederic Joliot and Irene Joliot-Curie |
synthesis of several new radioactive elements |
1935 (chem) |
| James Chadwick |
discovery of the neutron |
1935 |
| Carl David Anderson |
discovery of the positron |
1936 |
| Enrico Fermi |
new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation |
1938 |
| Ernest Lawrence |
invented the cyclotron |
1939 |
| George De Hevesy |
Use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes |
1943
(chem) |
| Otto Hahn |
discovered fission of massive nuclei |
1944 (chem) |
| Patrick Blackett |
improved cloud chamber and discoveries in nuclear physics and cosmic rays |
1948 |
| Hideki Yukawa |
predicted the existence of mesons as the basis of the nuclear force |
1949 |
| Cecil Powell |
Developed the photographic method of studying nuclear processes |
1950 |
| Edwin McMillan and Glenn Seaborg |
Discoveries in the chemistries of the transuranium elements |
1951 (chem) |
| John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton |
Transmutation of nuclei by accelerated particles |
1951 |
| Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell |
measured magnetic fields in atomic nuclei (NMR) |
1952 |
| Walther Bothe |
Analysis of cosmic radiation using the coincidence method |
1954 |
| Willard Libby |
For his method to use 14C for age determination |
1960
(chem) |
| Robert Hofstadter |
studied nuclear structure with electron scattering |
1961 |
| Rudolf Mössbauer |
Discovery of recoilless resonance absorption of gamma rays in nuclei |
1961 |
| Eugene Wigner |
application of symmetry principles to the nucleus |
1963 |
| Maria Goeppert-Mayer and Hans Jensen |
developed the nuclear shell model |
1963 |
| Hans Bethe |
developed the theory of nuclear reactions in stars |
1967 |
| Aage Bohr, Ben Mottelson, and James Rainwater |
developed the theory of collective states in nuclei |
1975 |
| Rosalind Yalow |
Study of insulin using radioactive tracers |
1977 (biology) |
| William Fowler |
Studies on the formation of nuclear reactions which produce chemical elements in astrophysical processes |
1983 |
