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International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2023

To celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2023 we invited girls from local schools to visit the Physics Department, to take part in a range of activities and to raise awareness about the important role female scientists play in Physics research.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2023 using experiments

Physics Department Developing Talent Award 2023 Winners

The Physics Department Developing Talent Award promotes, enhances and encourages the possibility of early career researchers developing their research careers within the Department by providing up to £10,000 in flexible funding.
Physics Department Developing Talent Award 2023 applicants

Chi Onwurah MP invited to be the Sir Gareth Roberts Lecture speaker for 2023

Chi Onwurah MP is this year’s invited speaker to deliver the 2023 Gareth Roberts Lecture. The lecture is titled: ‘A Life in Science, Engineering and Politics’ and will take place in the Ph8 lecture theatre on 8 March 2023 at 4.30pm
Photo of Chi Onwurah MP

Cosmic factory’s origins revealed

Our scientists have helped to shed new light on "factories" in outer space that produce elements used in the creation of planets, galaxies, and life.
Two bright neutron stars orbit each other

Centre for space research celebrates 20th anniversary

Our Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Planets are projected on to the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics

Durham graduate named new generation astronaut

We’re exceptionally proud to say that Durham graduate Dr Rosemary Coogan has been named as a new generation astronaut.
Rosemary-Coogan-astronaut

Prominent Durham Professors named in Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers 2022

Our academics are leading the way for world-class research and their influence and research quality has been recognised with their inclusion in the prestigious Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers for this year.
Clarivate highly cited researchers 2022

Would you wear a living shoe? How Durham academics have used microbes to create living materials, granting structure and motility in biohybrid systems

Dr Margarita Staykova from the Centre for Materials Physics has teamed up with Durham University sociologist Professor Tiago Moreira to discover some of the science and ethics of using microbes to create materials.
Would you wear a living shoe? The Royal Society poses the question, with the image of a boot with illuminated multicoloured veins spreading through it

Athena Swan Silver Award

We are Delighted to announce that the Physics department has been awarded Athens Swan Silver status until 2027 after going through a rigorous re-accreditation process.
Athena Swan Silver Award logo

#takemebacktuesday: Reflecting on 2022's Nobel Prize in Physics winner Prof. Alain Aspect, who opened our revamped laboratories ten years ago.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".
A smiling Prof Alain Aspect opening the refurbished laboratories in the Physics department in 2012

Supercomputer simulations reveal new possibilities for the Moon's origin

Our pioneering scientists from the Institute for Computational Cosmology used supercomputer simulations to reveal an alternate explanation for the Moon’s origin, as a satellite placed immediately into orbit following a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body.
Moon simulation

Prestigious grant awarded for research into Quantum Simulation and Ultracold Molecules

Professor Simon Cornish of the Quantum Light and Matter (QLM) research section  has been awarded a prestigious UKRI Frontier Research Grant: “SimPoMol – Quantum Simulation with Ultracold Polar Molecules” The grant is for £2.6 million  and started on 1st October.
An optical bench showing some of the optical components needed to realise a state-of-the-art cold molecule experiment.
Cosmic Ray Cosmo Simulation

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