Inside the Ray Dolby Centre - the stunning new home for the University of Cambridge’s famous Cavendish Laboratory

It is associated with 31 Nobel Prizes and where the electron, the neutron and the structure of DNA were discovered.

Now the University of Cambridge’s world-famous Cavendish Laboratory has a new state-of-the-art home - The Ray Dolby Centre.

It is named in recognition of the £85million donation from the estate of Cambridge alumnus and sound pioneer Ray Dolby that funded it, along with £75million support from the UK government through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Featuring 173 laboratories, lecture halls, learning and collaborative spaces, workshops, cleanrooms and offices, the new facility was officially opened on Friday, 9 May by Ray’s widow, the philanthropist Dagmar Dolby, the university’s vice-chancellor, Prof Deborah Prentice, and the head of the Cavendish Laboratory, Prof Mete Atatüre.

Since it was founded 150 years ago, the laboratory has changed our understanding of the physical world and remains at the forefront of physics research today, by seeking to unlock the secrets of dark matter and the origins of life in the universe, addressing the energy crisis to create a more sustainable society, and translating quantum science.

It is expected to lead innovation in crucial areas such as semiconductors, quantum communications, new methods of disease detection and large-scale energy generation and storage.

“The Ray Dolby Centre is a state-of-the-art national facility for physics which sits at the heart of the emerging Cambridge West Innovation District,” said Prof Prentice. “This unique environment is transforming how the UK does science, creating the leading location in Europe that brings together academics, entrepreneurs, and industry. It will be at the forefront of AI, quantum, and climate research, catalysing the growth of UK science and technology.”

While the centre is a huge boost to the Department of Physics at Cambridge, it is also an important facility for the nation. Much of the specialised research equipment in the building will also be made available to academic and industrial researchers at other UK institutions. As a national hub for physics, the Ray Dolby Centre hosts the new EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) National Facility, known as CORDE (Collaborative R&D Environment), which is designed to foster collaboration between industry and university researchers and enhance public access to new research.

Collaboration within the building has also been encouraged by its design which, in some sense, returns the Cavendish to its roots on Free School Lane.

Unlike the spacious new building, the Victorian site was small and cramped, but with space at a premium, it did encourage discussion and collaboration between researchers.

The Ray Dolby Centre will encourage similar conversations, not least through its central ‘street’, through which staff and students will pass each day

“We’ve designed the centre with humans in mind – the way they operate, the way they work, the way they create curiosity in each other – to originate new ideas,” said Prof Atatüre. “More people will bump into each other here, and talk more. We’re not simply maximising the number of offices and people we can put in a building, we’re maximising the impact those people can have.

“Scientific impact happens when you create the right environment for people to think outside the box. The greatest impacts on society – including the Cavendish’s biggest discoveries – have happened because of that combination of technological capability and human ingenuity.”

He added: “Science is getting more complex and technically demanding with progress, but now we have the facilities we need for our scientists to ask those questions, in the pursuit of discovering creative paths to the answers – that’s what we hope to create with the Ray Dolby Centre.”

And the impact will be felt across the sciences.

“We’ll be answering questions from a physics perspective, but we won’t just do physics because it’s a physics building,” said Prof Atatüre. “There’ll be a fluidic research culture, so that chemists, biologists, and others are all involved in tackling some of the biggest challenges of our time.”

The centre is also the new home for the Cavendish Museum, where objects from the laboratory’s history are on display, including Watson and Crick’s DNA model, the cathode ray tube used to discover the electron, the particle accelerator Cockcroft and Walton used to split the atom, and many more. Thirty-one affiliates of the Cavendish Laboratory have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

Further links to the past can be found walking around the new site including – amid the cutting-edge equipment – blackboards and chalk.

“You can’t rely on high tech alone,” said Prof Atatüre. “When you write in chalk, it stays on your fingers, the same way it stayed on James Clerk Maxwell’s fingers when he taught. It’s your link to the past, no matter what you’re doing today, whether that’s data intensive science, or computational physics beyond our imagination.

“Our legacy shouldn’t be just in the museum, it’s all around us, in everything we do. Cambridge has been here for more than 800 years, and little things like blackboards and chalk help remind us of that.”

The centre stands as a testament to the legacy and commitment to scientific innovation of Ray Dolby, and includes his 1961 Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, produced while at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on ‘Long wavelength X-ray microanalysis’, along with a Star Wars movie poster. While Stanley Kubrick’s 1977 film A Clockwise Orange was the first movie to feature Dolby’s noise reduction technology, it was George Lucas’ blockbuster that exposed many moviegoers to Dolby stereo sound for the first time, and prompted many cinemas to upgrade their systems.

The centre also features the Dolby Spectral Recording module – his final analogue invention, from 1986, which was quickly adopted for film and music recording before digital took over. A printed circuit board for the module, which featured more than 1,500 components, shows the complexity of his invention, and a large sculpture based on the diagram is also featured.

Ray Dolby died in 2013 and it was in 2015 that his widow announced the £85m donation to the university – one of the largest gifts it has received.

With facilities including a 400-seat lecture theatre, a ground-source heat pump and 770 cycle spaces it will support the needs of 1,100 undergraduates, graduates and staff more effectively than the current 1970s Cavendish II site, the move from which is likely to continue until the end of this year.

Ultra-low vibration performance was a key requirement for experiments on site, so the project features a basement with a two-metre thick foundation slab cast eight metres below ground. Computer modelling and proof-of-concept tests were carried out on specially cast slabs prior to construction to ensure the best results were achieved.

This is key for experiments in areas like nanosensing and quantum research, where scientists are working at the molecular, atomic and subatomic levels, meaning the tiniest vibrations – even from people walking – could distort data.

The project team also faced challenging requirements on temperature and humidity control and electromagnetic interference protection.

Walking around the new labs, it is noticeable that one of them has a toilet sitting in it amid the ‘surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy’ equipment.

Working there is PHD student Sarah Sibug-Torres, who aims to develop a ‘smart’ toilet using gold and lasers to analyse urine, which contains thousands of types of molecules that can give clues to whether someone is developing disease or responding to medication. Since each molecule vibrates in a different way, they can be identified even at very low concentrations, which could ultimately aid earlier diagnoses.

In another lab, Dr Stefan Diesing is working on very thin, resilient solar panels to power satellites that can withstand particles in space that can damage normal panels. They could even lead to solar farms in space, capturing energy to be transferred back to Earth.

As well as the research demands, the centre has also been built with the community in mind. Unusually, for a major scientific laboratory, some of the building is also open to the public - including its café and outreach and exhibition spaces organised around six courtyards.

Public events space is also incorporated into the design to aid the Cavendish’s work with schools and the wider public.

“We’re working to address society’s challenges – the energy crisis, healthcare, future technology – so of course that means involving the public,” said Prof Atatüre. “The old Cavendish had a ‘front of house’, where the public came in to see demonstrations of electricity, magnetism, and other research of the time, and a ‘back of house’, where the research happened.

“They were communicating with public about what they were doing, what science is, and it’s one of the first places where that happened. So in the same spirit, people will be able to come into the Ray Dolby Centre’s public wing for events, into the big auditorium and the lecture halls, and hear directly from Cambridge scientists.”

Its completion represents a major milestone for the university's wider Cambridge West Innovation District, which is home to its physics, engineering and computer science research sites. Plans for the old Cavendish site are now being developed in this context.

“The Ray Dolby Centre will make a significant and much welcome addition to the Physics research and innovation community in the UK,” said Prof Dame Ottoline Leyser, UKRI CEO. “It will inspire future generations and foster new collaborations, not least through its innovative plans for equipment sharing and opportunities for users from across the UK to benefit. I am delighted to be able to join in celebrating this remarkable occasion.”

Designed by the architecture and interior design practice Jestico + Whiles and constructed by Bouygues UK in partnership with executive design partners NBBJ and BDP, the five-floor 32,900 square metre centre was also supported by other funding, including donations from The Wolfson Foundation and Humphrey Battcock among others, and the University Capital Fund.