[djaque]

Thanks, that's good to hear. Fortunately I do have two papers in the works right now, one of them from an instrument I made and another from some simulation work.

The engineering really is the crux of the problem. I personally find it very interesting and I feel like an oddity in my department for that. Most other physicists kind of look down on the "e-word" to the point that my advisors made me change references to "engineering challenges" into "experimental challenges" for a conference talk I gave. I'm in a very equipment heavy field too which is why I find it so strange.

What's frustrating though is that sometimes it feels like I'm only doing engineering with no physics in the mix. Hopefully thay will change over the next year though.

[cushychicken]

What field would you go into if you were interested in making instruments for scientific research? Would that be engineering physics?

[joshvm]

Instrumentation is field-specific. It really depends how bespoke your requirements are. Some places buy stuff off the shelf, others fabricate in-house.

In astronomy it's called instrumentation. Astro has relatively sane nomenclature. You have observational (looking at stuff and gathering data), theoretical (theory and simulations) and instrumentation (building stuff). Everyone in the field understands those terms. That said, instrumentation spans everything from construction, design, calibration/characterisation, etc.

In other branches, as the OP pointed out it may be "experimental" physics. Problem with that term is it's extremely vague. That's essentially anything which doesn't involve theory or simulation - lab work. That doesn't necessarily mean you actually build anything though. I was surprised at how little we got taught about instrumentation during my physics degree. Of course we had labs, but it was more about using kit than how it was built. It's almost as if it's someone else's problem, even though that's not how research actually works.

The irony of physicists sneering at engineers is that most labs employ a bunch of them who do most of the actual design and build work. They tend to be less focused on publication, but they are absolutely critical employees. The sorts of people who've spent 20-30 years working on some uber niche detector tech and know more than the people writing the papers for sure. A good chunk have physics PhDs.

When you get to big money stuff like particle accelerators and telescopes, a lot of this is contracted out. Physicists and engineers are responsible for designing the spec, but it's less tinkering in a lab with hardware. In industry it's mostly called engineering (e.g. optical, mechanical, electrical), but I've seen engineering physics too. That tends to be in companies that build very niche equipment specifically for physics research.

[djaque]

Exactly, the instruments I was talking about are used to measure the properties of photocathodes. It's such a niche field that there's no off the shelf solution. Everybody makes their own device and ours is one of like two in the world with it's grade of sensitivity.

There is one professional engineer in the lab my group is a part of, but they primarily work on the bigger projects. For this, I have to do all of the CAD work and talking to the machinists. I also machined a lot of the parts myself due to time constraints.

[Balgair]

I'll echo this too. Instrumentation is field specific. I was in bioeng, but my work was photo-chem/physics and optics. Basically, building novel nanoscopes.

Pro-Tip: Want a 'quick' nobel? Do optics for ~3/4 years. Then never touch it again. Making new kinds of microscopes is crazy useful and high impact, but you either get lucky or you waste 45 years in a lab. Try it out for a bit, throw a few on red, then walk away from the table.

[cushychicken]

Optical sensors are a potential goldmine, I agree! The electronics are relatively straightforward to implement and the upside is potentially enormous. All you have to do then is find someone who needs your sensor tech! (Admittedly easier said than done. XD)

[Balgair]

Thanks, but I think you may have misunderstood me. I meant actual optics.

I agree that better sensor tech is also very useful. It is the end of the line for the optical path, after all. Any way you can get photons picked up better is great!

But the actual optics, the mirrors, the lenses, the fibers, the filters, the E-O waves, etc. That's where all the jazz is. I'm not kidding when I say it's an easy nobel. STED was just putting the right filter in the right place. DIC was just using a 1/4 plate just off the focus. PALM/STORM is just using a specific dye and a fast lamp. Blue LEDS are just a bit of chem. Optogenetics is just the right slime out of just the right pool.

Now, all those things built up on a LOT of other work, but it's not terribly difficult stuff to do. The processes are very straightforward. I mean Hell built STED in his living room out of cardboard boxes, literally.

But, you can also toil away on these projects for decades, tweaking this, isolating that.

Optics is absurdly touchy.

[djaque]

I'm in accelerator physics. Basically we study the physics of charged particle beams with the goal of improving their properties/developing new applications. I thought it was the perfect combination of engineering, which I like, with pure physics.