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Uniquely versatile undergraduate and graduate programs, an unrivaled breadth of research training, and Nobel Prize-winning work in world class facilities, defines the Department of Physics at Cornell University as a national and global leader in physics training and education. The department has more than 40 active professors, approximately 180 graduate students and 65 undergraduate majors, and offers a full range of university-level work in physics, from general education courses for nonscientists to doctoral-level independent research.
Accelerator physics has revealed hidden universes, from the Higgs boson to the blood vessels and tissues seen on a CT scan – and much of that progress is thanks to work done in an unassuming building tucked away on Cornell’s North Campus: Newman Lab.
Enabled by a custom thermometer, Cornell researchers have observed superfluid fluctuation effects, possibly gaining new insight for quantum computing and the physics of the early universe.
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Cornell researchers contributed critical knowledge in the early days of the LCLS-II project.
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Physicist Carl Wieman will visit campus Sept. 25-29 as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large, working with students and faculty and offering a public talk about his work in science education.
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A NIH-funded project, led by Itai Cohen, professor of physics, will use the fruit fly to study how the brain processes multisensory information involved in flight, possibly offering insight into human neurological function.
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Eighty-four students have been selected as National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) fellows in 2023, comprising the largest group of new fellows Cornell has ever fielded in one year.
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A team of Cornell researchers unexpectedly discovered the presence of a “quantum spin-glass” while conducting research designed to learn more about quantum algorithms.
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Our 34 new faculty will enrich the College of Arts & Sciences with creative ideas in a vast array of topics.
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Research in the department is organized in two laboratories, the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics (LASSP) and the Laboratory for Elementary Particle Physics (LEPP). Explore the links below to learn more about the major research areas of the department and the facilities available to researchers.