Applied Physics and Materials (Research)

The MSc by Research in Applied Physics and Materials allows you to undertake a year-long individual programme of personally and professionally enriching research.

Your applied physics and materials research project will be shaped by participation in research activities such as seminars, workshops, laboratory activity and fieldwork, as well as your involvement in one of our established research groups.

We have three main research groups.

Applied Physics and Materials Group (APM) is supported by grants from the European Union, Welsh Government, National Science Foundation, Australian Research Council, Welsh European Funding Office, and EPSRC.

The areas of research include:

• Biophotonics: Nano- and micro-structured materials, biomimetics, analyte sensing and light-tissue interaction

• Nanomedicine

• Sustainable Advanced Materials: next-generation semiconductors, bioelectronic materials and devices, optoelectronics including photodetection, solar energy conversion, advanced electro-optics and transport physics of disordered solids

Atomic, Molecular and Quantum Physics Group (AMQP) is supported by grants from EPSRC, the EU, The Royal Society, the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and various industrial and government sources.

The areas of research are:

• Analytical laser spectroscopy,

• Ultrafast Dynamics, Imaging and Microscopy, Optomechanics

• Antihydrogen, positronium and positrons

• Cold atom physics

• Nano-scale physics and the life sciences

Particle Physics And Cosmology Theory Group (PPCT) is one of the five largest particle physics groups in the UK. It is supported mainly by STFC, but also has grants from EPSRC, the EU, the Royal Society and the Leverhulme Trust.

The areas of research include:

• Amplitudes in gauge and supergravity theories

• Hot and Dense matter, High-performance computing

• Gauge/string duality, Higher spin holography, Integrability, Large-N gauge theories, supersymmetry and duality

• Holography and lattice theories in physics beyond the Standard Model

• Quantum fields in curved spacetime and theoretical cosmology

From September 2027, the Physics Department will be based at the Bay Campus, where all Physics programmes will be taught, benefitting from our advanced research laboratories and state-of-the-art facilities.