Research

Research at UCSB

UC Santa Barbara is a top research university in physics and many related technical areas. Students in CCS are well-prepared to participate in research activities. CCS summer undergraduate research fellowships (SURF fellowships) are awarded to CCS students (approximately 20 each summer) to support this work.

Student Projects

As part of the second-year lab course, students in CCS work together on a real-life research project in conjunction with a faculty member on campus. The project typically involves designing and building a piece of scientific apparatus, and designing and running an experiment. Students learn just how large an undertaking it can be to perform a well-controlled, publication quality scientifc experiment, but also how exciting it can be. Many of these projects do in fact lead to publications for the students invloved, or lead to further work in various research groups. Here are a few examples.

Hansma Lab - Bone Crusher

Students collaborated with Paul Hansma on a project to study bone fracture. They designed and built a crushing device and high speed camera assembly to study stress-strain curves of normal and osteoporitic bone, and to study fracture formation and propagation. This work culminated in several publications. Some pictures of the bone-crushing are shown at left. More information can be found here.

Cloud Chamber

This was another device built as a research project by second-year students. A cloudchamber is a particle-detector that tracks particles by the bubbles they leave behind in a medium as they pass through.