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Department of Physics

The Cavendish Laboratory was founded in 1874, along with the appointment of James Clerk Maxwell as the first Cavendish Professor. It has a distinguished intellectual history, with 29 Nobel prize-winners who worked for considerable periods within its facilities, and is associated with many notable discoveries, including the electron and the structure of DNA. In 1973, the Laboratory moved from the historic centre of Cambridge to a greenfield site, a mile west of the city centre. This formed the nucleus for the University’s development of a new science campus in West Cambridge.

Research activities span most areas of physics, and are organised under major research groupings: Astrophysics; Atomic, Mesoscopic, and Optical Physics; Biological and Soft Systems; Detector Physics; High Energy Physics; Inference Group; NanoPhotonics; Opto- and Micro-electronics; Quantum Matter; Semiconductor Physics; Surfaces, Microstructure and Fracture; Theory of Condensed Matter; and Thin Film Magnetism.

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Last updated March 2010

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