As physicists, we’re driven to explore and discover our universe. Think astronomy and galaxy formation, ultra-fast lasers, state-of-the-art cancer screening and much more. Our degrees put you at the heart of the twenty-first century.
How do stars come into being? How did dense stellar clusters evolve? And what do the answers to these questions tell us about that fundamental human conundrum: the formation of the Milky Way itself?
These are just some of the questions being investigated by researchers in the Department’s newly-formed Astrophysics group, led by Professor Mark Gieles.
Satellite observations inform the group’s computational work on modelling the dynamics of stars and gas in Milky Way-type galaxies. The group’s research stretches from the smallest of scales (individual stars and their dynamics) to the largest (dark matter and the growth of the Milky Way), looking at hydrodynamics and the modelling of gas behaviour along the way.
With the launch of ESA-Gaia later this year, a satellite that will measure the positions, distances and velocities of around a billion stars, the group will take us ever closer to understanding the origins of our galaxy.
Laser beams that shoot solar power to earth from space might sound like something out of a sci-fi blockbuster. But thanks to groundbreaking research coming out of the Advanced Technology Institute and Department of Physics, renewable, low-cost, space-derived energy, could one day be a genuine possibility.
The research team, overseen by Professor Stephen Sweeney, are working on a new system that could allow potent lasers to beam sunlight collected in space back to earth. The big challenge to energy transfer is efficiency: atmospheric conditions can absorb energy as a beam passes through. With that in mind, the team have been testing a system that uses invisible infrared lasers, which lose less power during transmission.
Tests have involved firing the lasers across huge aircraft hangers in Germany. The beams are then received by highly efficient receptor (photovoltaic) cells developed at the University of Surrey. Recent trials have yielded extremely promising results, with high power transfer efficiencies of around 44% already being recorded.
If successful, the research could lead to a system that would provide an unlimited supply of ‘clean’ energy to areas across the globe – day or night.
It’s as strong as steel, conducts as well as copper and is almost transparent. No wonder then that, since its Nobel prize-winning discovery back in 2010, many have come to think of graphene as a multi-application ‘wonder-material’.
Now Azin Fahimi, Dr Izabela Jurewicz and Dr Alan Dalton, in the Soft Matter Group at Surrey, are testing its potential use in the rapidly advancing world of touchscreen technology.
Today’s touchscreens rely on a coating of a material known as indium tin oxide (ITO) – a material that combines transparency with the ability to conduct electricity. Changes in local conductivity are how the screens of our mobile phones detect touch. But ITO is relatively expensive. And supplies are dwindling as consumers around the world clamber to get their hands on the latest technology.
The researchers are currently working on optimising levels of graphene thickness and conductivity. If all goes according to plan, this cheaper, more eco-friendly solution could grace our touchscreens in the next three to five years.
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Professor Alf Adams’ work on the strained-layer quantum-well laser has changed the world we live in. No wonder his work is regarded by experts as one of the top ten greatest UK scientific breakthroughs of all time…
A team of physicists led by Professor Ben Murdin has reproduced the conditions of one of the galaxy’s most hostile environments, where the earthly rules of chemistry don’t apply…
Inspiring TV star physicist Professor Brian Cox recently returned to the University of Surrey to deliver a far-reaching lecture on quantum physics…
