Resources
A number of special resources enrich students’ experiences studying physics at Richmond.
Gottwald Science Center
Dedicated in 2006 after a $37 million expansion and renovation, the Gottwald Center for the Sciences is the home of the biology, chemistry and physics departments and houses 22 teaching laboratories along with 50 student-faculty research laboratories.
Supercomputer Cluster
The Department of Physics operates a 53-node research supercomputing cluster, affectionately named SpiderWulf, funded in part by the National Science Foundation.
Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)
The department's atomic force microscope is able to plot the topography of a surface with a precision of better than one nanometer (one millionth of a millimeter). Professor Matt Trawick and his students use the atomic force microscope for their research in polymer nanotechnology.
Environmental Radiation Labs
The Richmond Environmental Radiation Laboratory (ERL) supports $150,000 worth of research equipment, including two hyper-pure germanium-detectors capable of measuring the gamma-radiation emitted by natural objects.
Teaching Labs
As part of the the Gottwald Science Center renovation, two introductory physics labs were built to facilitate student and faculty collaboration. New equipment and a newly designed layout mean that no more than two students use an experimental station at one time and the maximum of 24 students can participate in an integrated lab-lecture session. The new labs make teaching easier since professors can introduce a concept in lecture and then assist students as they immediately apply the newfound knowledge in a theory lab.
Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab)
Located in Newport News, Virginia, this facility is the nation's newest national laboratory and is devoted to unraveling the structure of matter based on the fundamental particles of nature—quarks and gluons. Faculty in the Department of Physics have been involved in some of the important discoveries made at JLab for the last fifteen years, and they will be part of the next step in the evolution of the laboratory.
