About the department
The Department of Physics started student admission in 2002 and currently follows a predominantly experimentation-focused undergraduate curriculum with its labs for undergraduate students. Our undergraduate students also have the chance to do a double major or minor at other departments. The Department of Physics was established in 1994 at GTU (named GIT back then) and it currently offers education at undergraduate and graduate levels. 14 professors, 7 associate professors, 5 assistant professors, 6 lecturers, 14 teaching assistants, 1 physicist, 1 physics engineer, and 1 secretary currently work under the department.
Besides its academic faculty, the laboratory of the Department of Physics has, from the very start, played a great role in the achievements made, thanks to its high-quality infrastructure. The laboratory was established closely following the latest technological and research trends in the world, and it has modern equipment that can carry out magnetic resonance, nuclear quadrupole resonance, d magnetic properties, electrical transport and microwave measurements, as well as several laser and thin film preparation devices. Owing to this research infrastructure, collaborations can be started with various research groups in Turkey and the world, and the needs of national industrial organizations are met.
The department faculty has, up to now, shown remarkable success in research projects. Every faculty member of the department has taken part in and/or completed either one or more TÜBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) projects. The department also stands out with its projects for the Ministry of Industry and Technology of the Republic of Türkiye. The SAN-TEZ (Industrial Theses Support Program) projects conducted particularly in the field of defense on various sensors (toxic gas and explosive chemical material detectors) and microwave absorbing materials are some of the examples of success of the department's contributions to university-industry collaboration.
The academic achievements of the department have also had a positive impact on its international scientific relations and carried its scientific collaborations many steps forward. These collaborations have further improved with the eight international scientific events organized by the department starting from 2001. These events, which have gained reputation in the international scientific arena, have been attended by leading researchers and scholars from leading research institutions. Among them are Prof. Peter Grünberg (PhD), who won a Nobel Prize for Physics in 2007, and Prof. Albert Fert (PhD).
All these activities have motivated our academic staff and alumni even more. Obtaining the opportunity at the events to meet leading scientists in person, many of our alumni got the chance to receive scholarships from international institutions and gain international research experience. Having gained such experience, an important number of these students have come back to Turkey, and another important portion of them still continues to conduct post-doctoral research at those institutions abroad or have become part of the faculty there.
