As of 2001, the College of Physical Science and Technology of Sichuan University is composed of the Department of Physics, Department of Applied Physics, The Basic Medical Physics Group, The Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, and The Institute of Atomic and Molecular Physics. Among these the Department of Physics is the oldest, originally established more than eighty years ago in 1926. Strong in teaching and research, it has recently developed the Electronics, Optical-Electric Technology and Material Science majors. According to an agreement among the Chengdu City Government, Chinese Groups of Nuclear Industry and Sichuan University, the College has spun off a new College of Nuclear Science and Engineering in October 2008.

The College of Physical Science and Technology (including the College of Nuclear Science and Engineering) is one of the largest colleges in the University and has made great contributions to the University’s development. There are over 200 faculty members, including 4 Academicians, 25 Ph.D. supervisors, and more than fifty professors and research fellows. There are 5 undergraduate majors, 16 master programs, 11 Ph.D. programs and 1 postdoctoral program. Among them, one undergraduate major was designated a National Base, two graduate programs as National Key Disciplines, and one other National Key Discipline in pending; There are two Ministerial Key Laboratories and two Provincial Key Laboratories. The two undergraduate courses, “General Physics” and “General Physics Experiment”, have been ranked as Key Courses for over 8000 undergraduates yearly. In 1999, the College was ranked as the Top Physics Talent-Training Base in Sichuan, and in 2007 a National Basic Science Research and Talent-Training Base.

The College enjoys a wide variety of equipment and ample teaching and research space, including a Cs-30 cyclotron, a 2.5 MeV electrostatic accelerator, a 600 kV ion electron accelerator, multipurpose high-resolution atomic collision equipment, a second-grade hydrogen cannon, high temperature shock wave tubes, an instantaneous spectrometer and Cadence IC design software. In the past years, the College has won 180 national, provincial, ministerial and municipal research awards, 100 national invention patents, and more than 20 outstanding teaching awards, publishing more than 4000 papers in international and national journals and more than 120 textbooks and monographs. In recent years, the College has held the distinction of being the University’s leading producer of SCI and EI papers. Currently the College has thirty national, provincial and ministerial research projects amounting to over $10 million in research funds. Each year, in addition to the teaching and research supervision of approximately one thousand Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral physics students, the College is responsible for running fundamental courses in “ General Physics” and “General Physics Experiment” for over 8000 students in science, technology and medical science.

Over the years, the College has graduated roughly 1500 Master’s and Doctoral students, 10000 undergraduates and 2500 junior college students. The College has offered various physics courses for over 200,000 students of the University in other fields, developed education program for adults, and supported network education. Concomitantly, the college is linked with the Sichuan Physics Society, Chengdu Physics Society and Sichuan Medical Physics Society, providing a solid basis for academic exchange, popular science education and talent training for national high school physics Olympic competition. The College also runs several national journals, including “Journal of Atomic and Molecular Physics”, “ Journal of Optical Scattering” and “ Physics Education and Discussion”. The College pays very serious attention to cooperation and exchange with universities and institutes both domestically and internationally.