Our scientists have helped to shed new light on "factories" in outer space that produce elements used in the creation of planets, galaxies, and life.

Our Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

We’re exceptionally proud to say that Durham graduate Dr Rosemary Coogan has been named as a new generation astronaut.

Our academics are leading the way for world-class research and their influence and research quality has been recognised with their inclusion in the prestigious Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers for this year.

Dr Margarita Staykova from the Centre for Materials Physics has teamed up with Durham University sociologist Professor Tiago Moreira to discover some of the science and ethics of using microbes to create materials.

We are Delighted to announce that the Physics department has been awarded Athens Swan Silver status until 2027 after going through a rigorous re-accreditation process.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".

Our pioneering scientists from the Institute for Computational Cosmology used supercomputer simulations to reveal an alternate explanation for the Moon’s origin, as a satellite placed immediately into orbit following a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body.

Professor Simon Cornish of the Quantum Light and Matter (QLM) research section  has been awarded a prestigious UKRI Frontier Research Grant: “SimPoMol – Quantum Simulation with Ultracold Polar Molecules” The grant is for £2.6 million  and started on 1st October.

Professor Brian Tanner, former Head of the Physics Department, officially opened three new laboratories on behalf of the Centre for Materials Physics.

We are delighted to share the success of the FLRN 2022 Conference in spite of the impact of the concurrent COVID and heat waves! Following on the positive feedback on the NanoLubrication 2021 Conference, Miro Cafolla (Physics, CMP) organised a meeting also this year (20-21 July 2022) with the generous support of the Institute of Advanced Studies.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – which Durham helped to develop and engineer – has captured its first images.