Physics Department News

The Pettifer Prize is presented annually to the first year Physics student with the best overall examination performance. It honours the memory of Dr Robert Pettifer, who was a member of the Department from 1972 until his retirement due to ill-health in 2007.

The 2017/18 prizewinner is Guy Moss, who receives a copy of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. The prize was presented by Robert's wife, Mary, and daughter, Candice, who kindly donated an Amazon voucher to add to the prize.

The University has signed an agreement with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) to establish a new framework that enables all interested departments to offer a joint PhD programme.

Physics is the first department to set up a Joint PhD programme under this agreement, organised by John Hanna.

This Physics Day was essentially a workshop concerned with experimental electron microscopy and theoretical modelling of ‘Extreme Nanowires,’ the smallest nanowires that can be formed down to a single atom width, and also discrete molecules formed on a similar scale. The Physics Day included contributions from four Warwick speakers, including two PhD students, UK speakers Prof. Andrei Khlobystov, Dr. Thomas Chamberlain and Dr. Andrew Morris from the Universities of Nottingham, Leeds and Birmingham respectively, and also the distinguished International Speaker Prof. Kazu Suenaga from the AIST in Tsukuba, Japan. This event was also used as a preamble for the EMAG (Electron Microanalysis and Analysis Group) meeting which was taking place in Warwick during the same week (i.e. 6^th-8^th July).

Synthetic diamonds, bioplastics and micro CT scanning in criminal justice were just some of the topics covered at last month’s Physical Sciences Industry Day. The event, which attracted local, national and international businesses, focused on how collaborative industrial partnerships can further businesses’ research and development, as well as lead to meaningful and impactful change for academics, industry and society.