REF 2014
Physics
15th in UK for 4* and 3*research (world leading and internationally excellent), 100% excellence in research environment.
The University is a world leader in Physics research, with scientists working in research centres across four continents as well as carrying out research closer to home. Our resources include the Liverpool Semiconductor Detector Centre, the Radiation Detector Laboratory, the Cockcroft Accelerator Science Institute, and the Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy.
The Department of Physics holds £58 million of research grants from a variety of funders including the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research council (EPSRC), the Royal Society, the EU and industry.
The Particle Physics group is a lead participant in the ATLAS and LHCb experiments at CERN and contributed directly to the discovery of the Higgs Boson. We also carry out research at Fermilab in the US, J-PARC in Japan and SNOLAB in Canada. The Particle Physics Group is a world leader in silicon detector technology and neutrino detectors.
The Nuclear Physics group is an international leader in the spectroscopy of deformed and heavy nuclei and in high resolution gamma-ray spectrometry and imaging, working at CERN, GSI in Germany, and at facilities in Japan, the US, Canada, Finland, Italy and South Africa.
At the Cockcroft Institute we contribute to the design and optimisation of new accelerator technologies at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and its future upgrades, as well as other facilities.
The Condensed Matter Physics group plays a key role in the University’s Stephenson Institute for Renewable Energy and in healthcare via the ALICE project at Daresbury (the UK’s only fourth generation light source). The group also leads the UK Materials Beamline (XMAS) at the European Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in Grenoble, France.
Working with partners from industry and the public sector we develop applications including new materials for the health sector; 3D gamma-ray imaging and fast/slow neutron detection for the nuclear and security sectors; anti-neutrino detectors for reactor monitoring; radiation-hard silicon detectors for medical imaging; novel cancer detection equipment (PET/SPECT) based on germanium, CZT and CdTE sensors; and imaging analysis and data-handling algorithms.