New AIN-Physics Building

View of existing Annexe building (A29) - Feb 2011

In 2010 the University was awarded $40 m towards the construction of a new building for research in the physical sciences, focussing on nanoscience, in the third round of the Education Investment Fund. In essence, the funds will support a major expansion in the teaching and research capabilities of the School of Physics. With funds from the University that more than match the EIF grant now approved, the new building will replace the 1960s-era Annexe building and be integrated with the existing heritage building on Physics Road to create a nationally-leading facility for teaching and research in physics.

The School of Physics has been successful in attracting a stream of international research leaders over the past decade as Federation, Laureate and Future Fellows. Since 2003 we have hosted the headquarters of one of the ARC Centres of Excellence and from 2011 onwards the School will be the headquarters for two Centres and host major nodes of another three. At the same time as these spectacular achievements in research were leading to an explosion in numbers of research-only academic staff, the numbers of undergraduate and postgraduate research and coursework students were also increasing. The School faced the prospect of being a victim of its own success by being unable to provide the infrastructure to support its greatly expanded teaching and research programs. Furthermore, despite renovations in recent years, the existing research facilities were inadequate for the leading-edge research challenges that our high profile researchers were keen to address.

Our new building will solve these problems. Operating under the banner of the Australian Institute of Nanoscience, it will be purpose-built to provide laboratories in which advanced structures and devices with nanoscale features can be made using optical lithography. Other laboratories will provide tightly controlled environments in which experiments of exquisite precision can be conducted using these devices.

The building will be designed with state of the art teaching facilities at both undergraduate and graduate level. These will include a lecture theatre designed to enhance student collaboration and other teaching spaces that enable a mix of lecture, tutorial, and laboratory experiences. The students’ learning experience will also be enhanced by the close coupling to advanced laboratories for teaching and research.

Research across a broad spectrum of the School’s activities will benefit. As examples, the photonics program (including CUDOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence) will have access to tools to fabricate metamaterials and other advanced optical materials while our quantum information scientists will both fabricate and test electronic transistors and other electron-based systems where the dimensions are so small that the quantised nature of the electron spin can be measured and controlled. Our instrumental scientists in astronomy, high energy and space science will have access to advanced assembly and test facilities while programs in advanced medical science (biomaterials, imaging and drug delivery) will receive a major boost.

View of Annexe buildidng (A29) - Feb 2011

The Australian Institute of Nanoscience will also provide a facility of national importance to researchers across the country. This facility will be based largely on the research infrastructure operated by the Bandwidth Foundry, a University-owned company that provides nanofabrication services to Australian research, together with the $3 m optical lithography stepper to be purchased with funds provided by the Australian National Fabrication Facility. The combined physics buildings will provide facilities to attract and retain students in all phases of their physics career. The integration of a national access facility with the leading teaching and research program in Australian physics will cement the School’s position as an international leader in the physical sciences.

1 February 2011

For more information

For further information on the role and function of the new AIN-Physics building, please email us at .

For information on matters relating to the construction project, please contact David Wiles at .

Annexe building (A29) and Heritage building (A28) - Feb 2011

The heritage Physics Building, completed in 1924