ANU Research School of Physics
The Research School of Physics (RSPhys) was established with the creation of the Australian National University (ANU) in 1947. Located at the ANU's main campus in Canberra, the school is one of the four founding research schools in the ANU's Institute of Advanced Studies.
Initially part of the Institute of Advanced Studies it was primarily a research school with limited interaction with the ANU's undergraduate students. This changed when it merged with the ANU Department of Physics in 2008 which was responsible for physics undergraduate education. With a total of around 250 employees the school has approximately 120 PhD students and 140 academic staff. The school is divided into separate research departments, PhD students can often have supervisors spanned several departments.[1]
Research[edit]
RSPhys is one of the leading physics research institutions in Australia. Major research facilities at the school include the 14UD NEC Pelletron accelerator and associated modular superconducting linac run by the Department of Nuclear Physics and Accelerator Applications plus an extensive range of smaller experimental and computational equipment.
Research ranges from the fundamental to the applied, including both experimental and theoretical work. The school's primary research areas are: materials science and engineering; lasers, nonlinear optics and photonics; nanotechnology and mesoscopic physics; physics of atoms, molecules and the nucleus; plasma physics and surface science; physics and the environment.[1]
The nuclear physics 14UD is one of a handful of large Van de Graaff accelerators in the world. It was the largest machine of its type when installed in 1974. After many upgrades the 14UD is capable of running terminal voltage of up 16.7 MV. Charging is via three inductive charging chains. In 1996 a superconducting RF linac was installed that is used as an energy booster for the 14UD enabling higher energies to be reached.[2]