About the School of Physics

The University of Melbourne's School of Physics is one of Australia's leading physics departments. It has achieved this status through the high quality of its research and teaching programs. The School offers a wide range of physics subjects to undergraduate and postgraduate students. It is located on the Swanston Street (the main street of Melbourne) at the northeastern boundary of the University campus.

The University of Melbourne is an international research and teaching university. Founded in 1853, the University commenced teaching its first students in 1855. Now the University has over 35,000 students in a broad range of professional disciplines. Over 6,000 students are higher degree students. The University has over 5,000 staff members.
The University is Australia’s leading research based university, with an international
profile through its reputation for scholarships and teaching.

The School of Physics houses 27 academic staff, 33 support staff, 17 research-only staff, and more than 80 postgraduate students. Skilled technical staff who operate, maintain and develop, complex instrumentation and equipment, support the teaching and research activities of the school.

The School houses some of the major research laboratories in the Faculty of Science.  These include:

• A comprehensively resourced research library stocked with all leading journals and reference texts and supported by a full time librarian

• Well equipped computer laboratory (Baker Laboratory) for research projects and teaching

• State-of-the-art X-ray, laser and atom optics laboratories

• A 5 MV Pelletron accelerator providing MeV ion beams for two nuclear microprobe systems

• A clean room complex equipped with advanced instruments including a focused ion beam microscope, a UHV atomic force microscope, UV Raman spectrometer, keV focused ion beam microscope and electron microscopes

Research in the School is supported by many significant grants (totalling more than $3M) from the Australian Research Council.  The School is also an integral part of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology.  This reflects the high standard of the research carried out by the various research groups in the School.  These groups maintain links with national and international centres such as: CERN (Switzerland), KEK (Japan), NASA, Advanced Photon Source (USA), Los Alamos (USA), CSIRO and the Centre for the Study of Sub-Atomic Matter (Adelaide).  The Astrophysics Group makes extensive use of both national (Anglo-Australian Telescope, Parkes Telescope, Australia Telescope Compact Array) and international observatories (Hubble Space Telescope, Gemini, various Chilean telescopes).

On our web pages you will find information about each of the main research groups in the School of Physics and contact details for more information.  Our facilities page has more information for industry and other outside groups with an interest in using our facilites.

We welcome inquiries from students interested in doing original research towards a PhD with us.  Please contact us.

 Prof Geoff Taylor, Head of School.