Physics: Instrumentation development - need help understanding what's involved

Villhelm

It was brought to my attention that career-wise I might find 'instrumentation development' a particularly good choice given my interests. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time to go into what this entailed at the time and I was wondering what it involves from the point of view of physics? In particular if anyone has any experience(s) they could convey to me that would be most appreciated.

Cheers.

AlephZero

This is huge topic. Virtually every "research" type of experiment involves either building and/or calibrating a special purpose test rig, from something like the LHC down to something as small scale as a project I was involved in, namely "how to rub two 1mm sized metal cubes together while measuring the friction forces and displacements - but to make it more challenging, do it at temperatures above 1000 deg C".

There is also the design of instrumentation for monitoring or controlling "production" systems - which again covers anything in size and complexity from a home central heating system to the flight deck of an airliner or a nuclear power plant.

Tell us more about your particalar interests, and you might get more focused response.