Facilities
Our Melbourne-based laboratories house an extensive range of instrumentation including:
- several advanced ultra-high vacuum instruments for electron spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy
- facilities for material processing and nanofabrication
- electron and X-ray imaging
- a dedicated helium liquifier.
As well as access to La Trobe's Foundation Partner Synchrotron Program, the Department has established Australia's first remote access 'Virtual Beamline' – a computerised Visualisation Laboratory providing global research opportunities for postgraduate students and staff.
Other facilities include access to La Trobe Microscopy resources, including electron microscopy, light and confocal microscopes, and analytical X-ray facilities.
We also maintain a number of end-station instruments at synchrotron facilities in Berlin, Chicago and Melbourne.
Melbourne: a physics research hub
Melbourne has emerged as a key hub for condensed matter and materials physics, with a critical mass of leading groups at universities in the area, in addition to major research facilities such as the Australian Synchrotron and Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication at our doorstep. Our students regularly access these facilities and find opportunities to travel frequently during their research program. Melbourne is a vibrant city to live and to work on exciting and cutting-edge science.
Physics Observatory
The University’s new Takahashi TOA-150mm refracting telescope and Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain 300mm reflecting telescope are housed in the Physics Observatory.
Night-time viewing sessions are held on a regular basis. The new Takahashi telescope is the largest of its kind in Melbourne’s north, and can be programmed to seek out galaxies hundreds of millions of light years away.
The Takahashi can be fitted with a Hydrogen-alpha filter and the Meade a standard metal film sun filter, for the viewing of solar flares, granulation and sunspots on the surface of the sun and events such as the transits of venus and mercury.
The TIGER high frequency radars
La Trobe University operates two high frequency (HF) radars, one in Tasmania and one in New Zealand, used primarily to study plasma convection in the high latitude ionosphere. The radars detect backscatter from plasma density irregularities in the ionosphere and also backscatter from the ground propagating via reflection from the ionosphere. These radars form part of a global network of similar HF radars known as SuperDARN.
