Cavendish Laboratory

@DeptofPhysics

The Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics at University of Cambridge. At the forefront of discovery in physics since 1874.

Cambridge phy.cam.ac.uk Joined October 2014

250 Following 7.9K Followers 2.5K Posts

Latest posts 5

Cavendish Laboratory @DeptofPhysics 3d

⏳ Discover the Science of Time!
Join us for a special livestream of the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture 2026, featuring Professor Jim Al-Khalili exploring the mysteries of time! 🔬 8 Dec | 6:00–8:30 PM | Ray Dolby Centre
Book your tickets: buff.ly/sTfSiAd @slcuplants

Cavendish Laboratory @DeptofPhysics 5d

Meet Second Prize winner, Izzy Sargent!
Her winning image, ‘Small Made Big’, reveals how tiny changes in liquid crystal molecules create striking visual patterns, highlighting the science behind everyday technologies like LCDs.
Congratulations, Izzy! 👏 buff.ly/y5CicxJ

This photo of the crystalline phase of 4-n-heptyloxybenzoic acid was taken through the eyepiece of a polarised optical microscope while characterising the phase diagram of the nOBA (4-n-alkoxybenzoic acid) homologues. In this series, the lower homologues (n = 1, 2) are non-mesogenic, while intermediate chains (n = 3 to 6) show nematic liquid crystal behaviour, and longer chains (n ≥ 7) additionally exhibit smectic phases.

The image doubly captures this year’s theme “Big and Small”. We observe the “small” microscale sample section that has been magnified, revealing the “big” visual display. Equally, the “big” patterns that we see directly result from the “small” nanoscale molecular interactions and alignment.

Cavendish Laboratory @DeptofPhysics Oct 29

Meet Head of Department Prize winner, Abhirup Mookherjee! 🔬
His two winning images reveal how bacteria interact to form intricate patterns and complex living communities.
Congratulations, Abhirup! 👏
buff.ly/y5CicxJ

Bacterial Art in Bloom: The swimmers, the builders, and the living tapestry

What happens when two flawed microbes are forced to live together? In this vibrant biofilm image, two defective strains of Bacillus subtilis unite to build a thriving community: glowing magenta “swimmers” (which can move but lack sticky glue) and glowing green “builders” (which produce the protective matrix glue but cannot move). Overlaid with standard light microscopy, the image captures their microscopic spatial dance. Through localized growth and spatial crowding, the two populations drive the colony to fold and buckle into stunning 3D patterns across the surface.

A Division of Microscopic Labor: How single bacteria team up to build a community

Even simple microscopic bacteria work as a team to build complex living communities. In this vibrant snapshot of a day-old Escherichia coli colony, different jobs are assigned to distinct zones: glowing green highlights the “builders” weaving a protective glue to anchor the colony, while magenta marks the “swimmers” forming an outer ring prepared for movement. A closer look reveals individual cells chaining, dividing, and jostling against one another. As single microbes crowd, push, and cooperate at the microscopic level, they create striking, ring-like patterns that lay the template for multicellular biofilm development.

Cavendish Laboratory @DeptofPhysics Oct 23

📸 Quantum gas microscopes show us where atoms are. But what if they could also show us how they’re moving? A proposal for a new ‘phase-space’ microscope could capture both in a single shot, opening a new window onto quantum matter.
🔗 buff.ly/jy7jeWJ

An artistic impression of the proposed scheme. Atoms in an initial state (left-hand panel) pass through a first matter-wave lens, which sorts them by their momentum (central panel). This information is written into an additional degree of freedom; measuring it together with position after the second lens gives a final image that records a snapshot in phase space (right-hand panel).

Cavendish Laboratory @DeptofPhysics Oct 22

The winners of the Cavendish Photo Competition 2026 have been announced!
Meet 1st Prize winner, Zofia Dziekan!
Her image, ‘Winter Wonderland’, reveals intricate, fractal-like patterns formed by gold nanoparticles and molecular linkers, captured using scanning electron microscopy.

First Prize winning image: Winter Wonderland