Department of Physics

Research Areas

Research Focus Areas in Physics

The current research niche areas in the Department of Physics  are Experimental  Solid State Physics, Theoretical Solid State Physics and Theoretical Nuclear Physics.

Experimental Solid State Physics

The research focuses on preparation of nanomaterials, fabrication of nanodevices as well as characterization and applications of these materials and devices. The research has application in electronics, memory storage devices as well as energy conversion and storage devices. This research niche area utilizes several highly specialized research equipment.

(https://unisaphysicsbooking.setmore.com/services)

Theoretical and Computational Solid State Physics

The research focuses on electronic, physical and thermal properties of materials. The research has application in electronics, high-temperature and solar technology industry. This research niche area utilizes advanced programming and highly specialized computational software packages and the in-house High-Performance Computing facility for simulations of materials.

Theoretical and Computational Nuclear Physics

The research focuses on quantum mechanical properties of atomic, nuclear and particle systems. The research has application in Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. This research niche area involves the designing of models, derivation of dynamical equations, as well as devising and validation of numerical methods in physics.

To carry out reserach in the above niche areas, the following faciliities  are  available:

Structural Facilities:

  • Microwave
  • XRD, XPS, RAMAN, FTIR, AFM, DLTS, HR-SEM
  • Photonics and Optics Lab
  • PL, Uv-Vis, TL, Ellipsometer
Magnetism Lab:
  • ESR, PPMS
Access to UNISA High Performance Computing Cluster:
  • 128 X 28 Processors
  • Two Fat/SMP Nodes
  • Nvidia CPU Node
  • 1 MIC Node
  • 1 SPSS Node
Computational softwares:
  • Materials Studio
  • Discovery Studio
  • Matlab
  • Mathematica
  • SPSS
  • SAS,
  • Ansys Fluent
  • Quantum Espresso,
  • Wien2K

Last modified: Mon Aug 07 18:04:24 SAST 2023