Facilities

The department is based on the west side of campus and boasts excellent teaching and research facilities. Students taking engineering modules will benefit from the University's extensive laboratories and workshops, while our recently opened STEMLab brings further state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities to the campus - including designated teaching spaces for our physics students.

The £17 million STEMLab facility boasts wide-ranging teaching facilities, including an optics laboratory and physical sciences lab. Our labs are well-equipped with modern equipment to ensure students enjoy a high-quality learning experience, as well as providing an excellent environment for cutting-edge research.

STEMLab

Undergraduate students will use our state-of-art laboratories in STEMLab - a £17million investment in teaching facilities across science and engineering subjects.

Observatory

We have our very own departmental undergraduate observatory, with 16inch GPS equatorial mounted Meade optical telescope, 8inch GPS mobile optical telescope, Coronado solar telescope, and an Elliot Instruments spectrometer.

Research facilities and labs for undergraduate final year projects

We have various research facilities and labs where undergraduates can work on their experimental final year projects. Below are some examples of what we have available.

Undergraduate radio telescope

A 3 metre CASSI Corp undergraduate radio telescope tuned to the Hydrogen line.

Raman Microscopy

The Department of Physics houses a Jobin-Yvon LabRam HR Raman microscope which serves the needs of research workers in the department and can help provide specialist services to industry.

Nanolithography and thin film deposition

Thin film growth by evaporation, magnetron sputtering and pulsed laser deposition. Ability to grow metal, oxide and nitride films. Maskless photolithography system, ion milling and ultrasonic wedge bonding for preparation of micron scale patterned devices and contacting for measurement.
Scanning probe microscopy

Scanning probe microscopy

Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) under vacuum for atomic scale resolution and spectroscopy measurements. Contact and non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM) for nanoscale measurement of surfaces and patterned devices.

Cryogen free measurement system

Variable magnetic field (0-9T) and temperature (300mK – 400 K) for vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), resistivity and thermal transport (thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient) measurements.

a Physics research lab
Physics research lab

24/7 access to computer labs

The Schofield Building has two PC based computer laboratories running the Windows 7 operating system (with virtual Linux available from the Windows desktop).

Faculty meeting area

Our staff offices and new faculty meeting area in the refurbished Sir David Davies building.

Eat, drink, socialise

Based in the Sir David Davies building, the Coffee House is the ideal location to grab a bite to catch-up over food and drink - with indoor and outdoor seating areas.