Research

Research in the department is conducted in four centres:

• Research in the Department's new Astrophysics research centre includes work on star clusters, and on the evolution of the Milky Way.
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• Research in the Centre for Nuclear and Radiation Physics ranges from pure nuclear physics to research that is more applied in nature, for example into developing techniques for medical imaging. It includes experimental and theoretical nuclear physics groups, radiation detectors, medical physics and the environmental radioactivity group.
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• The University's Advanced Technology Institute conducts research into electronic and photonic devices suich as advanced lasers, and related materials. The Department of Physics contributes to the Photonics and Theory and Advanced Computation groups of this interdisciplinary institute. Most of the institute's members are either physicists or electronic engineers.
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• The Department's Soft Matter Group undertakes both pure and applied soft matter physics. Group members also have interests in nanotechnology, and biological physics. Soft matter ranges from truly "soft" matter such as jelly to paints, polymers and parts of living cells. The Group is part of the Surrey Materials Institute.

The Department's Soft Matter group studies crystallisation, as illustrated by this computer snapshot of a crystallite, which has been modelled in interactive 3D.