| 1926 |
Jean Baptiste Perrin | "for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium" |
| 1927 |
Arthur Holly Compton | "for his discovery of the effect named after him" |
| 1927 |
Charles Thomson Rees Wilson | "for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour" |
| 1928 |
Owen Willans Richardson | "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him" |
| 1929 |
Prince Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie | "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons" |
| 1930 |
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman | "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him" |
| 1932 |
Werner Karl Heisenberg | "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen" |
| 1933 |
Erwin Schrödinger | "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory" |
| 1933 |
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac | "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory" |
| 1935 |
James Chadwick | "for the discovery of the neutron" |
| 1936 |
Victor Franz Hess | "for his discovery of cosmic radiation" |
| 1936 |
Carl David Anderson | "for his discovery of the positron" |
| 1937 |
Clinton Joseph Davisson | "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals" |
| 1937 |
George Paget Thomson | "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals" |
| 1938 |
Enrico Fermi | "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" |
| 1939 |
Ernest Orlando Lawrence | "for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements" |
| 1943 |
Otto Stern | "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton" |
| 1944 |
Isidor Isaac Rabi | "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei" |
| 1945 |
Wolfgang Pauli | "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle" |
| 1946 |
Percy Williams Bridgman | "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" |
| 1947 |
Sir Edward Victor Appleton | "for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer" |
| 1948 |
Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett | "for his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation" |
| 1949 |
Hideki Yukawa | "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces" |
| 1950 |
Cecil Frank Powell | "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method" |
| 1951 |
Sir John Douglas Cockcroft | "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles" |
| 1951 |
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton | "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles" |
| 1952 |
Felix Bloch | "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith" |
| 1952 |
Edward Mills Purcell | "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith" |
| 1953 |
Frits Zernike | "for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope" |
| 1954 |
Max Born | "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction" |
| 1954 |
Walther Bothe | "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith" |