A variety of scientific programs are available in the Physics Department as options for satisfying the thesis requirement for the Ph.D. and/or the M.S. degree. These programs are listed (in alphabetical order) and described in the remainder of this brochure. Faculty and student research is constantly evolving as new scientific opportunities become available, and as programs and facilities expand.
The Physics Department has recently undergone a significant expansion. A number of new faculty were recruited, and in conjunction, our physical facilities were expanded. An addition to our Physics Building was completed a few years ago. This addition, located adjacent to our present in-house physics library and reading room and a contiguous seminar room, includes new office space for faculty and graduate students, another seminar room, and a small informal coffee and conversation area. It also contains a new computer laboratory to house the Physics Department's extensive in-house computer facility. The Physics Department's computer network is linked to the University-wide ETHERNET backbone, which is connected to external networks through an OC-3 line that gives researchers access to a variety of external sites such as National Supercomputer facilities.
The Physics Department is scheduled to receive additional space in a new Physics/Biology building in 2003. This new space will join the Gant Science Complex (Physics, The Institute of Materials Science, Mathematics, Statistics, and the Computer Center) to the present Biology Building. The new building will provide space for five new physics laboratories and for associated faculty and graduate student offices. This new building is being funded by UConn 2000, a far-sighted and generous $1 billion grant by the State of Connecticut to provide and develop facilities at the University of Connecticut over a ten-year period.
Physics graduate students have access to a number of University research centers. These include the adjacent Institute of Materials Science, containing extensive facilities for materials research, such as investigations in surface physics, biomaterials, polymer science and electron microscopy. Other centers include the Biotechnology Center, the Environmental Research Institute, the Photonics Research Center, and the Taylor L. Booth Center for Computer Applications and Research. In addition to the Department's and University's in-house facilities, a number of national and international research facilities are available to our students and faculty. These facilities include the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, NY, and the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA, both of which are used for research in the properties of materials. Multi-charged ion interactions with surfaces are investigated at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland; and multi-charged ion interactions with atoms and molecules are being investigated at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Also included are a number of facilities for work in Nuclear Physics, including the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) at Newport News, Virginia; the Yale Tandem Accelerator; the ATLAS accelerator at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois; and radioactive beam facilities at Michigan State University, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, at RIKEN in Tokyo, Japan, at GSI in Darmstadt, Germany, and at Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium.
Joint research programs have been established with the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility as well as at Brookhaven National Laboratory, at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and with various other universities and research institutes in the U.S. and abroad.
The research activities of the Physics Department are supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Research Council, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Connecticut Department of Economic Development, the Research Corporation, and the American Chemical Society. Various industrial corporations also support research in the Department that is of basic scientific interest and also has promise for stimulating technological spin-offs.
A weekly colloquium is held in the Department on topics of general interest to all physicists. In addition, a broad range of specialty seminars are held in the research fields represented in the Department. These bring visiting researchers to the campus to discuss the methods and results of their investigations. These colloquia and seminars provide valuable opportunities for faculty and graduate students to learn about work in progress here and at the visitors' home institutions.