Graduate Studies

Admission requirements and procedure

Candidates seeking admission to the M.Sc. program must have a B.Sc. in physics or closely related field, with high standing. Candidates for admission to the Ph.D. program must have a thesis-based M.Sc. degree in physics or highly relevant field. The general admission requirements and the application procedure are regulated governed by the regulations of the School of Graduate Studies of Concordia University and can be consulted at graduatestudies.concordia.ca

Applications to either program should exclusively be submitted electronically to the Concordia University centralized application website and not directly to the department: https://connect2.concordia.ca/concordia/admission/admission.ezc

The Graduate Program Committee of the Department of Physics reviews the applications that meet the formal requirements set by the School of Graduate Studies and selects the files of the most suitable candidates for distribution among potential research supervisors. A successful candidate must be chosen by one or two (in case of joint supervision) faculty member(s) as a potential graduate student. Upon admission the research supervisor(s) and the department accept the responsibility for ensuring and arranging the financial support for the student for at least two years for the MSc and three years for the PhD programs. Upon arrival, a Supervisory Committee is appointed for each student. This committee consists of two faculty members in the department and the research supervisor(s). The committee is responsible for monitoring the progress of the academic program of the student and reports to the Graduate Program Committee.

Scholarships and awards

The financial support generally comes from teaching and research assistantships, internal and/or external funds. The frequently updated list of internal and external awards and scholarships can be reviewed at the following website: http://graduatestudies.concordia.ca/prospectivestudents/funding/awardsforexcellence/

Some of the awards are available for prospective students but most are only offered to students already in the program. Competition-based partial or full tuition fee remission awards are also available for international students.

Degree requirements

Requirements at the M.Sc. level

• Four, one-semester courses to be chosen from the list approved by the department. At least two of these courses should be taken in the Department of Physics.


• One seminar where the student presents his/her research accomplishments and participation in the departmental seminars . The grade for this component is determined by the Graduate Program Committee.


• An M.Sc. thesis. The key requirement for the M.Sc. degree is the presentation and acceptance of a thesis based on original research accomplishments. The thesis is to be defended in an oral examination.

Requirements at the PhD level:

• Three, one-semester courses to be chosen from the list approved by the department. At least two of these courses should be taken in the Department of Physics.


• A comprehensive examination to be held at or before the end of the first year in the program. The student should write a summary on a research problem not equivalent but relevant to his/her research project and present it to the Supervisory Committee in the form of an oral examination.


• Two seminar courses (one research and one pedagogical) where the student presents his/her research accomplishments and gives a lecture aimed at an advanced undergraduate group of students and participation in seminars given by other students. The grades for these courses are determined by the Graduate Program Committee.


• A PhD thesis. The key requirement for the PhD degree is the presentation and acceptance of a thesis based on original research accomplishments. The research accomplishments should be disseminated in the form of research articles published in refereed scientific journals. The thesis is to be defended in an oral examination.

Research Areas

Prospective graduate students are encouraged to visit the research pages of our faculty members to get detailed information about the research areas represented by our faculty members: http://physics.concordia.ca/faculty/.

Please note that in order to become a graduate student an academically admissible student must be selected as a future research group member by a professor with open position(s). Thus, it is vital to the applicant to select a research field based on interest and/or prior experience.

We have expertise in theoretical and experimental condensed matter physics, theoretical particle physics, laser optics and photonics, molecular modeling/computational physics, physics in education as well as in experimental nano-scale and mesoscopic physics, and molecular biophysics with special interest in solar energy conversion.

Some of our research faculty are members of interdepartmental and interuniversity centers/groups, such as the Center for Research for Molecular Modeling (CERMM) (http://cermm.concordia.ca/) and the NanoScience Group (http://chem.concordia.ca/Nanoscience/index.php) and the Interuniversity Centre for Subatomic Physics (http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/cips/)

The theoretical and experimental research fields are supported by state-of-the-art facilities, a few of them are rare in Canada or even in the world. For a detailed list and description of the available facilities please visit the research websites of our faculty.