Facilities

In addition to the facilities developed specifically for use within individual research groups, physics students and researchers have access to a variety of broad-based facilities within our department, within CMU and within the Pittsburgh area.

Carnegie Mellon University is among the most computer-intensive communities in the world. Most physics research groups maintain their own computer systems. A departmental computing cluster is available to faculty, staff, visiting scientists and graduate students. Physics researchers can access the facilities at the nearby Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), a joint project of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh. The PSC's computational resources include a Cray T3E and a massively parallel Alpha server delivering 6 teraflops of computing power. The co-director of the PSC, Dr. Michael Levine, is a member of the physics department.

The Engineering and Science Library, located ner the physics department in Wean Hall, serves as an important resource. Other Carnegie Mellon libraries -- Hunt Library and the Mellon Institute Library -- as well as the University of Pittsburgh Library and the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh are available to CMU researchers.

The leading-edge research performed at Carnegie Mellon requires an extensive array of equipment. The department maintains facilities for x-ray diffraction and reflection, laser spectroscopies, calorimetry, magnetic and electrical transport measurements, optical characterization of interfaces, scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopies, and sample preparation including molecular beam epitaxy. Collaborations with other departments provide access to additional facilities, including nanofabrication, electron and optical microscopies, magnetic measurements, and fluid and interface characterization.

We use a variety of facilities for off-site experimental efforts, including national synchrotron and neutron scattering facilities, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FermiLab in Chicago), the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN in Geneva, Switzerland), Brookhaven National Laboratory (Long Island), Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Virginia) and a telescope facility at the South Pole.

The University of Pittsburgh is only a 15-minute walk from Carnegie Mellon, affording considerable interaction between our department and a comparably sized department at Pitt. Our colloquia and seminars are held jointly, interdepartmental research collaboration is common, and students and faculty from both institutions participate in advanced special topics courses. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute and the Pittsburgh Technology Center are other neighbors of Carnegie Mellon. The resources and collaborative atmosphere within this science community benefit Carnegie Mellon and these neighboring institutions. .