Stafford Withington heads the Detector Physics Group at the Physics Department. The group works on the development of advanced instrumentation and ultra-low noise detector technology for astrophysics and the applied sciences. The detectors developed in his group cover the millimetre-wave, submillimetre-wave, and infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The Detector Physics Group runs a major superconducting detector fabrication facility, and is interested in many aspects of device physics, including

• heat transport in low-dimensional structures
• solid-state noise mechanisms at low temperatures
• materials science associated with fabricating complex science grade devices and microcircuits

Stafford Withington has considerable expertise in the optical physics and numerical modelling of submillimetre-wave and infrared bolometers, imaging arrays, interferometers, phased arrays, and pulsed optical systems.