The Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI) is one of the major research groups in the Physics Department at Durham with approximately 70 staff and research students. We are distributed across two physical locations, one of which is in the new Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics on the University science site in Durham, and the other is at the North East Technology Park (NETPark), an internationally recognised location for science and technology companies, based about ten miles away in Sedgefield, Co. Durham.
CfAI has traditionally concentrated its efforts in 4 main research areas, adaptive optics, optical fibres, faint object spectroscopy and near infra-red instrumentation. In addition to these research and development activities the group is also involved with international collaborations to provide common user instrumentation in the areas of adaptive optics, spectroscopy and space instrumentation. More recently the group has been applying the expertise originally gained from astronomical instrumentation to challenges in the life sciences including microscopy and in vivo imaging. Two further new research areas include the application of Microwave Kinetic Induction Detectors (MKIDs) for single photon detection and energy measurement, and diagnostic equipment for plasma based nuclear fusion systems. CfAI also has close links with the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy and the Institute for Computational Cosmology.
