The Cavendish Laboratory
History, Current Research and Future Development
The Department of Physics
2008
The Role of Physics
• Practical Application of Physics Research for the Benefit
of Society
• The Intellectual Underpinning of Physics and all Cognate
Sciences
• The Development of Individuals with the Ability to Relate
Phenomena to Mathematical Structures in a Non-trivial
Way
• Physics for Its Own Sake – Insights into the Nature of
Our Physical Universe
The Cavendish Laboratory
• The policy of the Department is to maintain a very powerful
core of fundamental physics in all its diversity supported by
theory.
• Today, we want to concentrate on two of the major new
areas of research – Biological and Soft Systems (BSS),
leading to the Physics of Medicine (PoM), and Atomic,
Mesoscopic and Optical Physics (AMOP).
• Physics is what Physicists do.
• Physics is extensive.
The Founding of the Cavendish Laboratory
In 1871, the Chancellor of the
University, William Cavendish,
Seventh Duke of Devonshire
provided £6,300 from his own
resources to meet the costs of
building and equipping a physics
laboratory, on condition that the
Colleges provided the funding for a
Professorship of Experimental
Physics.
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell was elected the
first Cavendish Professor in 1871. He
was somewhat reluctant to accept the
position since he had resigned from
his post in King’s College London
some years earlier to devote his time
to his estate in Scotland and the
writing of his great Treatise on
Electricity and Magnetism. Maxwell
was responsible for the design of the
Laboratory and the equipping of its
laboratories.
James Clerk Maxwell
Later this year, a splendid
statue of Maxwell will be
unveiled in George Street
Edinburgh, the first such
memorial in Scotland. It
recognises the fact that
Maxwell was the key figure
whose discoveries provided
the essential link between
Newton and Einstein.
James Clerk Maxwell
Maxwell did not live to see his
theories of electricity,
magnetism and statistical
physics fully confirmed by
experiment. He designed
apparatus to test his theory of
the electromagnetic field,
which were carried out by his
successor, Lord Rayleigh.
Maxwell died in 1879 at the
early age of 48.
Cavendish Laboratory in Free School Lane
John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh
Rayleigh agreed to hold the chair
for only five years. His name is
associated with many physical
phenomena. He discovered the
correct expression for the
spectrum of a black-body at low
frequencies, the Rayleigh-Jeans
law. Other phenomena include
the Rayleigh criterion in optics, the
Raleigh-Taylor instability in fluids,
Rayleigh scattering, .....
John Joseph (JJ) Thomson
In 1884, Rayleigh was succeeded
by the young J.J. Thomson, who
held the Cavendish Chair until 1919.
His election was a surprise since he
had little experience of experiment
and had a reputation for being
clumsy with his hands. He was
supported by an outstanding group
of Laboratory assistants, pride of
place going to the chief assistant
Ebenezar Everett, who constructed
the experiments.
The Cavendish Laboratory 1897
In 1895, the University
allowed students from other
Universities to come to
Cambridge to study for a
research degree. The first two
students to take advantage of
this were Ernest Rutherford
from New Zealand and John
Townsend from Dublin.
Thomson’s tenure marked the beginning of the great period
of discovery for Cavendish physics.
Changes of direction
In 1895, Rontgen announced the discovery of X-rays and in
the following year, 1896, Becquerel discovered natural
radioactivity. Thomson and Rutherford quickly changed their
research directions, Thomson to understand the cathode rays
which produced the X-rays and Rutherford to radioactivity.
In 1897, Thomson carried out one of the great experiments of
physics when he measured the charge to mass ratio of
cathodes rays. These had been discovered in experiments
with discharge tubes at low pressures. Thomson’s most
famous experiment involved passing a beam of cathode rays
through crossed electric and magnetic fields.
The Original Thomson Tube
Thomson’s original tube.
Replica on show in the
museum.
In the famous experiment of
October 1897, Thomson found
the charge to mass ratio of the
cathode rays by balancing the
electric and magnetic forces
acting on the cathode rays.
The charge of mass ratio was
much less than that of
hydrogen
e/m »1000 – 1800 (e/m)Hydrogen
Geoffrey Taylor
One remarkable experiment was
carried out in 1909 by the young
G.I Taylor which bears upon the
AMOP experiments you will see
later. As an undergraduate, Taylor
carried out an experiment with low
level light which demonstrated
that, even at a very low light level,
individual photons form a
diffraction pattern on a screen.
This was the first quantum optics
experiment.
Ernest Rutherford
Rutherford with the
apparatus with which he
demonstrated the disintegration of nuclei by
incident a-particles in 1919.
The original apparatus is in
the Cavendish Museum.
These disintegrations were
photographed by Blackett
with his automated cloud
chamber in 1925.
Lawrence Bragg
Lawrence Bragg was Cavendish
Professor from 1938-1953. He
and his father were awarded the
Nobel prize for their discovery
the law of diffraction of X-rays
from crystals in 1912. They
exploited the technique of X-ray
diffraction to study the structures
of all types of materials and this
gave rise to the discipline of Xray crystallography.
Francis Crick and James Watson
In the early 1950s, Frances Crick
and James Watson worked in
Bragg’s X-ray crystallography
group and carried out their
studies of the double helix
structure of DNA. These
discoveries led to the foundation
of the Laboratory for Molecular
Biology, a separate organisation
founded by the Medical
Research Council.
Nevill Mott
Bragg was succeeded by Nevill
Mott as Cavendish Professor in
1953. He was a specialist in
solid state physics and won the
Nobel prize for his studies of the
electric and magnetic properties
of non-crystalline materials.
During his tenure, new research
groups made many notable
advances. These included the
radio astronomy and physics and
chemistry of solids.
Brain Pippard
Mott was succeeded by Brian Pippard
as Cavendish Professor in 1970.
Pippard was a specialist in lowtemperature physics who made the
first experimental determinations of
the Fermi surface of copper.
During his tenure as Cavendish
Professor, he organised the move of
the Laboratory to West Cambridge
and the construction of the present
Laboratory.
Sam Edwards
Pippard was successed as
Cavendish Professor by Sam
Edwards who started major
initiatives in the area of soft
condensed matter physics. This
has become one of the major
growth areas in the Laboratory
and in turn has given rise to the
new programmes in the physics
of biology and the physics of
medicine.
Physics of Medicine
• Physics of Medicine is a new initiative led by the Cavendish.
• It will create an environment where researchers can freely mix, discuss
and share ideas at the interface of the physical sciences, technology,
life sciences and clinical research.
• A new building is being
fitted out at the moment.
• Phase One will officially
open in Dec 2008.
• Priority project is the
construction of Phase Two.
The Research Groups
Members of the Laboratory
University Officers
Of these, Research-Teaching Staff
90
65
Contract Staff - Research Fellows, PDRAs
150
Research Students
250
Emeritus and Visitors
70
Assistant staff
140
Total
700
The Research Groups
Research is divided into 12 Groups
• Astrophysics
• High Energy Physics
• Detector Physics
• Opto and Microelectronics
• Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical
Physics
• Surface, Microstructure and
Fracture
• Biological and Soft Systems
• Quantum Matter
• Inference
• Semiconductor Physics
• Nanophotonics
• Theory of Condensed Matter
Astrophysics
• The research programmes of the Astrophysics group are centred on
four major areas, each linked to instrumental programmes at the cutting
edge of astronomical technology.
• Formation of Stars and Planets
• Atacama Large Millimetre Array
(ALMA)
• James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
(JCMT)
• Observational Cosmology of the
Microwave Background Radiation
• Arcminute Microkelvin Imager
(AMI)
• ESA Plank Surveyor Satellite
Astrophysics
• Formation and Evolution of Galaxies
• Low Frequency Array (LOFAR)
• Square Kilometre Array (SKA)
• High resolution imaging of Stellar
Systems and Active Galactic Nuclei
• Magdalena Ridge Observatory
and Interferometer (MROI)
• Kavli Institute for Cosmology
• In Aug 2006, the establishment of
a Kavli Institute for Cosmology
was approved.
• Funds provided by the Kavli
Foundation will support 5-year
senior research fellowships.
Detector Physics
• The Detector Physics Group runs a major facility for designing,
manufacturing and testing a new generation of superconducting
detectors for astrophysics and the applied sciences.
• The Detector Technology
• The group is involved in the
development of a range of
detector technologies.
• The Facilities
• Better than Class 100 lithography
room.
• Full cryogenics and RF test
facility
Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics
• The Atomic, Mesoscopic and Optical Physics group studies quantum
aspects of condensed matter; from Bose-Einstein condensates to
semiconductor quantum dots.
• Quantum gases and collective
phenomena
• Areas of interest: superfluidity,
quantum magnetism, nonequilibrium phenomena.
• Quantum optics and cold atoms
• Correlation phenomena of
bosonic and fermionic atoms.
• Quantum Optoelectronics
• Dynamics of spins in lowdimensional semiconductors.
• Quantum optics and mesoscopic
systems
• Optical control and manipulation
of multiple spins in quantum
confines systems
Biological and Soft Systems
• The 21st Century promises a major expansion at the interface of
physics with the life sciences. The Biological and Soft Systems group is
pursuing this kind of multidisciplinary research.
• Soft Matter
• Colloids
• Polymers and Composites
• Thin Films and Interfaces
• Imaging
• Environmental Scanning Electron
microscope (ESEM)
• Medical imaging
• Micromechanics and Optical
Manipulation
Biological and Soft Systems
• Physical properties of biological
systems
• Cell Biophysics
• Molecular Biophysics
• Physics of Medicine
• Many of the activities are
expected to move into the new
facility.
Inference
• The Inference Group is involved in a wide range of projects
in the general area of machine learning and information
theory. From the optimisation of error-correcting codes to
automated strategies for Go.
• The Dasher project
• Neural Networks
• A text-entry interface driven
• Used to understand how
by natural continuous
the brain works.
pointing gestures.
• Energy research
• Informing the public and
government of ways energy
can be harnessed efficiently
and sustainably.
Nanophotonics
• In Nanophotonics, new materials are constructed in which atoms are
arranged in sophisticated ways on the nanometre scale. These metamaterials often display new properties not observed in the constituents.
• Nanoplasmonics
• Semiconductor microcavities
• Nanoscale self-assembly results
• Microcavities represent a new
in nanostructured surfaces with
interface for light and matter to
specific optical properties.
meet.
• Polymer photonic crystals
• Flexible polymer-based photonic
crystals change colour under
strain.
High Energy Physics
• The High Energy Physics group’s research is based on experiments a
high energy particle accelerators, with group members making up part
of several international collaborations.
• ATLAS
• A particle physics experiment
based at the CERN LHC.
• Large Hadron Collider beauty
experiment (LHCb)
• A special purpose experiment at
the LHC used to investigate “Bparticles”
High Energy Physics
• Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation
Search (MINOS)
• The main goal is to study the
phenomenon of neutrino
oscillation.
• Research and Development
• The group works on an R&D
programme to solve the
challenges of next-gen detectors.
• Cavendish HEP Theory work
• The groups works on Quantum
Chromodynamics and beyondStandard Model phenomenology.
Opto and Microelectronics
• The Optoelectronics group carries out fundamental physics studies in
different aspects of organic semiconductor materials; long-chain
molecules made from conjugated units such as benzene.
• Light Emitting Polymers
• The group pioneered the physics
of semiconducting polymers as
LEDs
• Solar Cells
• Understanding the formation of
electronic states is important to
optimise efficiency.
Opto and Microelectronics
• Transistors
• Research is focussed on the
charge transport of organic
semiconductors
• Microelectronics Research Centre
• The MRC works closely with the
Hitachi Cambridge laboratory on
novel electronic quantum devices.
Quantum Matter
• The Shoenberg Laboratory for Quantum Matter studies matter under
extreme conditions using advanced experimental techniques and very
low temperatures, high magnetic fields and high pressures.
• Anisotropic Superconductivity
• Exploring the theory for p-wave
and d-wave superconductivity
• Correlated Electron Materials
• Studying manifestations of
electron-electron correlation
• Exotic States of Matter
• Non-Fermi liquid behaviour
Quantum Matter
• High-Tc Materials
• Continuing investigation
• High Pressure
• A new quantum parameter
• Novel Superconductors
• Superconduction from new
material combinations
• Quantum Ferroelectrics
• New quantum critical point
• New Cryogenics
• Simplifying equipment
Semiconductor Physics
• The Semiconductor Physics group explores and develops new physics
using state-of-the-art semiconductor device fabrication technology,
particularly in new types of nanostructures.
• One-dimensional Electron transport
• Mesoscopic 2D Electron transport
• Examining behaviour in low
dimensional systems.
• Electron transport in Quantum dots
• Possible future as a new
computing architecture.
Semiconductor Physics
• Surface Acoustic Waves
• Quantum Light sources and detectors
• Collaborative efforts with Toshiba
Research Europe.
• Low Temperature scanning probes
• Novel scanning system enable
study of conduction in devices.
• Terahertz science and technology
• Many applications due to noninvasive and non-destructive
nature.
• Thin Film Magnetism
• Novel magnetic properties.
Surface, Microstructure and Fracture
• The Surface, Microstructure and Fracture group studies surface
physics, microstructure, fracture and microscopy, as well as dynamical
material testing and high-speed photography.
• Fracture physics
• High precision experiments to
develop theoretical knowledge.
• Surface physics
• New technique: He-3 Spin-echo.
• Structure and dynamics
• Understanding how structures
behave by external effects.
Theory of Condensed Matter
• The Theory of Condensed Matter group constantly evolves to address
new theoretical challenges, some of which arise from novel experiments
performed in the Cavendish and elsewhere.
• Collective Quantum Phenomena
• Using theoretical methods to
address physical problems
• Quantum mechanical methods
• Developing new methods with
greater accuracy.
• Soft condensed matter
• Investigating liquid crystal
behaviour.
The Department
Teaching
• Training future generations of physical scientists continues to be a
central pillar of the Cavendish’s programme.
• The Laboratory attracts large numbers of the brightest young scientists
from the UK and overseas at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
Teaching
• Undergraduate Teaching
• Physics students are able to
develop their enthusiasm and
ingenuity through the challenges
provided by the course.
• Graduate Teaching
• The Laboratory offers graduates
from around the world the
opportunity to work with worldclass researchers across the
complete spectrum of physics.
Undergraduate Teaching
Student numbers
1st year
Part IA
400
2nd year
Part IB (single)
170
Part IB (double)
150
3rd year
Part II
120
4th year
Part III
100
In the 1st year students studying Natural Sciences are required to
take three experimental subjects and mathematics.
Students in 3rd and 4th year spend most of their time on the West
Cambridge site. Students in the first two years have lectures in the
centre and practical classes in the Laboratory.
Undergraduate Numbers
Undergraduate Numbers
450
400
350
300
Part IA Physics
250
Part IB Advanced Physics
200
Total Part II
Total Part III
150
100
50
0
2000-1
2001-2
2002-3
2003-4
2004-5
2005-6
2006-7
Development
• Physics is a living and dynamic discipline, which continues to expand in
intellectual depth and breadth.
• Particularly significant are the many cross-linkages with other
departments, notably the physics of biology, medicine and the life
sciences.
• These ground-breaking developments require new investment in
infrastructure.
Development
• The University has recognised that it is essential to rebuild the
Laboratory to match the new requirements of the research and teaching
programmes. Specifically:
• The present buildings, constructed in 1974, are no longer appropriate for the
current programme or, in light of new interdisciplinary collaborations and new
investigative techniques, for the future direction of research at the Cavendish.
• The provision of state-of-the-art laboratories, offices and supporting
infrastructure, including scientific computing, with all the advantages of modern
design, will enable the Cavendish to maintain and enhance its contribution to
physics at the international level.
• The reconstruction of the Laboratory will complement the University's ambitious
plans for a major contemporary science complex on the West Cambridge site.
Outreach
• Educational Outreach to the broader community, particularly young
people, is an essential part of the work of the Laboratory.
• The Educational Outreach Office has the prime objective of stimulating
interest in physics amongst 11-19 year-olds.
• Physics at Work
• The flagship event organised by
the Cavendish is the Physics at
Work exhibition.
• Over 2000 young people visit the
Laboratory over a three-day
period.
Outreach
• Working with Schools
• Educating the next generation of
physicists is regarded as an
important responsibility.
• Senior Physics Challenge
• A major "schools physics
development programme” and
"university access initiative" .
• Cavendish Physics Centre
• Envisioned well-equipped
facilities to demonstrate the scope
of physics.
Contacts
The Cavendish Laboratory
Head of Department
JJ Thomson Avenue
Prof. Peter Littlewood
Cambridge
Tel:
+44 (0) 1223 337 429
CB3 0HE, UK
Email:
hod@phy.cam.ac.uk
Tel:
+44 (0) 1223 337 200
Director of Development
Fax:
+44 (0) 1223 363 263
Prof. Malcolm Longair
Email:
hod@phy.cam.ac.uk
Tel:
+44 (0) 1223 765 953
Web:
www.phy.cam.ac.uk
Email:
msl1000@cam.ac.uk
Development website: http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk/cavendish/development/