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.

Professor Brian Tanner, former Head of the Physics Department, officially opened three new laboratories on behalf of the Centre for Materials Physics.

We are delighted to share the success of the FLRN 2022 Conference in spite of the impact of the concurrent COVID and heat waves! Following on the positive feedback on the NanoLubrication 2021 Conference, Miro Cafolla (Physics, CMP) organised a meeting also this year (20-21 July 2022) with the generous support of the Institute of Advanced Studies.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – which Durham helped to develop and engineer – has captured its first images.

From Monday 16th until Friday 20th May, the Assembly Rooms theatre is hosting an exciting new project from their in-house Technical Theatre Team in collaboration with the Durham University Physics Department. 'The Final Frontier' is an immersive, experiential and theatrical journey into space that is designed to calm the mind and may help to relieve exam stress.

Prof. Heather Lewandowski is this year's invited speaker to deliver the 2022 Rochester Lecture, which will be held in the Ph8 Lecture Theatre, Wednesday 18 May 2022 at 4.30pm. This year's lecture is titled 'Watching chemical reactions happen one molecule at a time'.

The Physics Department Development Talent Award promotes, enhances and encourages the possibility of early career researchers developing their research careers within the Department by providing support in the form of up to £10,000 in flexible funding. The four successful applicants in the 2022 round of this scheme are announced below. Congratulations and best of luck with your research!

The Honorary President of the National Skills Academy for Nuclear (NSAN) and member of the ONR Independent Advisory Panel, Dame Sue Ion, delivered this year's annual Gareth Roberts Lecture on Wednesday 9 March at 4.30pm.

An international team of researchers, including Professor Carlos Frenk, Professor Adrian Jenkins and Dr. John Helly from our Department of Physics, has produced the largest and most accurate computer simulation to date of our local patch of the Universe.

Ultracold molecules hold great promise for a variety of quantum technologies, including a new generation of quantum computers and quantum simulators. Prof Simon Cornish will lead a new £1.6 million International Collaboration funded by EPSRC that aims to deliver this vision.

The RSE is supporting personal and professional development for undergraduate astronomy students.

As a demonstration of single atom trapping, researchers in the Quantum Light and Matter research section have created and imaged festive arrangements of individual laser-cooled caesium atoms. Each bright pixel in their images corresponds to light captured from a single caesium atom cooled to a temperature a million times colder than room temperature and trapped in a tightly focussed laser beam called an optical tweezer.