Research Areas

The MIT Department of Physics is recognized as a worldwide leader in physics research, providing students with opportunities across a wide range of fields. We strive to be at the forefront of many areas where new physics can be found. While we often study the simplest things, such as individual atoms, we study the most complicated things too: unusual materials like high temperature superconductors and those that are important in biology. By pushing the limits, we have the chance to observe new general principles and to test theories of the structure and behavior of matter and energy. Our physics faculty and researchers are active members of several international collaborations including the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory in Antarctica, the Magellan Project at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland, and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory in Louisiana (Livingston) and Washington State (Hanford).