Doctoral study in Physics
Why study with us?
New Zealand’s leading and largest Faculty of Science* brings together 10 diverse schools and departments to provide outstanding quality teaching and research opportunities. Our doctoral students work with some of the nation’s leading researchers and benefit from the faculty’s connections with international universities and industry. You will also have access to high-quality laboratory and field research facilities.
Research opportunities
We welcome PhD proposals in areas including:
- Condensed matter physics
- Computational materials science
- Nanotechnology
- The physics of complex systems
- Innovation and economics
- Climate research
- Satellite remote sensing
- Interannual anomalies of global albedo and cloud-top height
- Generation of dispersive waves
- Cascaded four wave mixing
- Temporal cavity solitons
- Development of customised two-photon microscope for in vivo imaging in mouse brain
- Nonlinear microscopy
- Optical Biopsies using Optical Coherence Tomography
- Bacteria detection using fluorescence quantification
- High-Current Low-Metal-Contamination Volume-Cusp Ion Source for Semiconductor Applications
- Geophysics
- Laser ultrasonics
- Elastic wave scattering
Our people
Many of our knowledgeable scientists are major contributors in their field.
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Research topics
See a selection of past and present research topics:
- Generating 100fs high power pulses from a fibre laser system and demonstrating the potential for using this for micro machining applications | supervised by Neil Broderick
- Applications of MISR measurements to three-dimensional cloud properties and relationships between hydrology and radiative forcing by clouds | supervised by Roger Davies
- Theoretical early universe cosmology to investigate the dynamics of inflationary models based on multiple, interacting scalar fields | supervised by Richard Easther
- From ultrafast lasers to microresonator frequency combs | supervised by Miro Erkintalo
- From superatoms to nanostructured materials | supervised by Nicola Gaston
- Widely tunable optical sources using optical microresonators | supervised by Stuart Murdoch
- Shelf Seas Oceanography with Focus on Ocean-Glider Data | supervised by Craig Stevens
- Optical Biopsies using Optical Coherence Tomography | supervised by Frederique Vanholsbeeck
For more information about PhD theses and topics you may be interested in, or supervisors and their past research, please use the search function on the Libraries and Learning Services catalogue.
Scholarships and awards
See our University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship page for scholarship opportunities. Or search our database for scholarships that may be available.
Help and advice
Please see our Doctoral students section for further information, advice and contact information.