The department of physics offers programs leading to both the master of science and doctor of philosophy degrees. The master's degree can be earned with either a thesis or non-thesis option.
Most physics graduate students are supported by teaching or research assistantships, although some fellowships are available for exceptionally promising students. Most new graduate students start as teaching assistants in the introductory physics laboratory. Later, they are often supported as research assistants on external research grants. Entering graduate students usually have a physics undergraduate degree; however inquiries from students with other technical degrees and a good mathematics background are encouraged, since the program allows minor background deficiencies to be made up.
Each student's graduate degree program is designed around a set of core graduate courses (classical mechanics, electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics) and two graduate physics electives. After their second year, Ph.D. students must take a qualifying examination based on the material taken from the undergraduate courses and the graduate core courses. Details of the program and course offerings can be found on the department's web page at http://physics.mst.edu/ or requested via email to [email protected].
The department's research emphasis includes three areas of physics: condensed matter and materials physics; atomic, molecular, and optical physics; as well as astrophysics. Experimental and theoretical research opportunities are available in each of these areas. Graduate students in the department work with faculty on a wide range of problems, including the characterization of magnetic materials, predicting the properties of quantum and classical phase transitions, investigating electrical and thermal transport, determining electron-atom scattering events, computing the electronic structure of new materials, measuring and imaging ion-atom collisions, growing and characterizing exotic quantum materials, studying wave propagation in complex media, exploring quantum electrodynamics' descriptions of few-electron atoms and ions, studying gravitational waves emitted by black holes and neutron stars; and exploring the expansion history of the universe.
Most research is performed in the Physics Building, but several research studies are carried out in the Materials Research Center on campus as well as in national laboratories and other national facilities such as LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. Special instrumentation in the physics department includes a unique ion-atom accelerator and energy-loss spectrometer, an optical atom trap, custom ultra-high vacuum systems, Auger and XPS surface characterization spectrometers, facilities for the growth of exotic materials, low temperature transport measurement instruments, and high-performance computer systems for modelling and simulation.