Overview

The Department

Imperial’s Department of Physics is one of the largest and most exciting in the UK. Research conducted in our department embraces innovative and dynamic fields of study from astrophysics and high energy physics through to laser science and theoretical physics. The Department has been home to three Nobel Prize winners and continues to contribute to groundbreaking discoveries in fields such as thermonuclear fusion, the origins of the universe, climate change, and the search for the Higgs boson.

Our undergraduate degree programmes provide a solid foundation for the study of physics and the opportunity to tailor your degree programme to specialise in many fields of study. Our students have access to state-of-the-art lasers, facilities for nanoscale fabrication in clean room environments, plasma physics experiments, and images and data collected from major international experiments in, for example, astrophysics.

Physics graduates from Imperial are in demand from a wide range of employers. For example, the electronics industry needs physicists to design next-generation display technologies, lasers, optical fibres, and advanced semiconductor devices. Increasingly the energy sector looks to physicists to improve photovoltaic cells for solar energy generation, to optimise wave and wind power technologies, and to improve the efficiency of electrical components. And physicists also find career opportunities in interdisciplinary teams, for example those concerned with medical applications or with inventing new diagnostic techniques for life science applications.