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Research led by the University of Oxford has found that rapid economic growth brought major gains but has contributed to worsening outdoor air pollution and a sharp rise in urban air-pollution-related deaths.

Physicists have used a hybrid quantum computer to observe the Aharonov-Bohm effect in a quantum simulation.

Following their success having come second in the University of Oxford’s annual Student Entrepreneurship Programme (StEP), a team of four students went on to win first prize in the Reuben College Entrepreneurship Forum 2026 pitching competition.

Researchers at Oxford’s Department of Physics have demonstrated a new way to control a robot using brain-inspired computing hardware based on physical waves.

Researchers in the Department of Physics have developed a new method that can watch thousands of individual DNA molecules in action and then read the exact sequence of each one, directly linking what a molecule does to the code it carries.

Physicists at the University of Oxford have helped confirm that one of the strangest phenomena in physics - quantum entanglement - occurs even among some of the heaviest and most fleeting particles ever created.

We work among extraordinary people doing extraordinary things; get to know some of them by reading these quick-fire interviews. We meet Rachael, Programme Director for the Oxford Quantum Institute.

A team of four students – three of whom are from the Department of Physics – came second in the University of Oxford’s annual Student Entrepreneurship Programme.

An international team including Professor Sir Roger Penrose has observed a long-predicted effect of gravity on a falling quantum object for the first time.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment observed a particle interaction that could be interpreted as a signal from weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMPs, a dark matter candidate – but researchers will need more data to confirm.

Professor Laura Herz FRS has been awarded the Royal Society’s Rumford Medal for her outstanding research on the physics of light interaction and energy conversion in semiconductors, including metal-halide perovskites, nanomaterials and molecules.

How can we better predict ‘extreme weather events’ in a world where these are no longer so exceptional? Dr Shruti Nath, from Oxford University’s Department of Physics, argues that AI-powered forecasting could be an invaluable tool