Graduate students in physics in the College of Arts and Sciences pursue a PhD in close collaboration with research faculty leading investigations in a wide range of experimental and theoretical research areas such as:
- Astrophysics
- Biophysics
- Soft condensed matter
- Hard condensed matter
- Free electron physics
- Gravitational waves
- High energy physics
- Optics
- Quantum information science
- Solid-state physics
State-of-the-art laboratories are found in Willamette Hall, home of the physics department. Physics graduate students routinely work at one of several research facilities
- LIGO gravitational wave detector
- CERN large hadron collider
- CAMCOR housing capital-intensive equipment for microanalysis, surface analysis, electron microscopy, semiconductor device fabrication, as well as traditional chemical characterization
