One of the highlights in the Physics World calendar is the annual announcement of our Breakthrough of the Year, which will be made this year on Thursday 12 December.

Today, we are revealing the 10 finalists for 2019, which serves as a shortlist from which we will pick the Breakthrough of the Year.

This year’s Top 10 Breakthroughs were selected by a crack team of five Physics World editors, who have sifted through hundreds of research updates published on the website this year. In addition to having been reported in Physics World in 2019, our selections must meet the following criteria: