The annual Rochester Lecture for 2023 took place on Wednesday 31 May, and was this year delivered by Dr Richard Bowman, a Royal Society University Research Fellow and Reader specialising in microscopy and open hardware. The lecture was titled “Smart microscopy for everyone with open source hardware”, concerning both the OpenFlexure project and OpenFlexure Microscope.

Astronomers say they have found one of the universe's largest black holes to date using a new technique. Scientists at Durham University discovered the "ultramassive" black hole by observing its pull on passing light, called gravitational lensing. Dr James Nightingale who led the study said even he struggled to "comprehend how big this thing is". Their findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Chi Onwurah MP is this year’s invited speaker to deliver the 2023 Gareth Roberts Lecture. The lecture is titled: ‘A Life in Science, Engineering and Politics’ and will take place in the Ph8 lecture theatre on 8 March 2023 at 4.30pm

To celebrate International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2023 we invited girls from local schools to visit the Physics Department, to take part in a range of activities and to raise awareness about the important role female scientists play in Physics research.

The Physics Department Developing Talent Award promotes, enhances and encourages the possibility of early career researchers developing their research careers within the Department by providing up to £10,000 in flexible funding.

We’re exceptionally proud to say that Durham graduate Dr Rosemary Coogan has been named as a new generation astronaut.

We’re part of an international team of cosmologists who’ve discovered that observations of gravitational waves might reveal the true nature of dark matter.

Dr Margarita Staykova from the Centre for Materials Physics has teamed up with Durham University sociologist Professor Tiago Moreira to discover some of the science and ethics of using microbes to create materials.

We are Delighted to announce that the Physics department has been awarded Athens Swan Silver status until 2027 after going through a rigorous re-accreditation process.

We’re home to a new £10m supercomputer that will help scientists around the world investigate the mysteries of the Universe.

We’re part of an international team of astrophysicists who’ve simulated galaxy formation and large-scale cosmic structure with unprecedented detail to investigate how the Universe formed.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science".