The Department of Physics has a long and proud tradition in research and teaching, with current fields of research focussed on five strategic areas: high energy physics, nuclear physics, solid state and nano-scale physics, applied physics and tertiary physics education. The department has close links to iThemba LABS national laboratory, located nearby, where staff make use of cyclotron and van de Graaff accelerator beams for nuclear and applied research.  Other academic staff are members of the international ALICE and ATLAS experiments using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The department is committed to being a leading Physics department on the continent and offers internationally competitive undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.