This is a taught masters level course in which candidates work alongside the 4th-year (Part III) students taking the undergraduate MSci Physics Tripos. The course is aimed at students who wish to pursue a professional career in physics, in academic or industrial research.
Details of the current course including Part III can be found here. Further information can be obtained by contacting the Cavendish Teaching Office at teaching-office@phy-cam.ac.uk.
The course is designed to act as a top-up course for students who already hold a 3-year undergraduate degree in physics (or an equivalent subject with similar physics content) and who are likely to wish to subsequently pursue a research degree, either within the department or elsewhere.
Assessment consists of written examinations for the taught modules, and a research project (carrying roughly a third of the marks) that is assessed by a project report and an oral examination.
The entry requirement for the MASt is a qualification comparable to at least a good upper second class or better UK Bachelor's degree in Physics. Candidates applying who are not familiar with the majority of the core content in the first three years of the Cambridge undergraduate physics degree may find the course very challenging.
You can apply for the programme here.
Main Image: True colours.
The photos show thin flakes of Germanium Selenide (GeSe) observed through a polarised light microscope. GeSe is birefringent material, when illuminated with a plane-polarized light, it produces two waves polarised along the ordinary and extraordinary axes of the material. These two waves acquire different phases as they propagate in the material and interfere on the microscope camera (after going through an analyser). Depending on the crystal orientation and the thickness of the flakes, different wavelengths of the light will interfere constructively or destructively, which makes colourful and pleasing images. Each micrograph corresponds to a different orientation of the polarization of the illuminating light. The whole field of view is 125 micrometres wide.
Credit: Nicolas Gauriot