 Burhop returned to Australia in 1936 , taking up a position as a lecturer at the University of Melbourne , where Laby was eager to build up the Physics Department by adding expertise in the latest developments in nuclear physics . He married his fiancée , Winifred Ida Stevens , on 23 December 1936 in a Salvation Army ceremony . They had a daughter and two sons . He completed his Cambridge doctor of philosophy ( PhD ) degree under Laby 's supervision in 1938 . It was in three parts : " The ionization and reorganization of an atom in an inner shell , with special reference to the Dirac theory of the electron " ; " Some problems in atomic disintegration " ; and " Note on the migration of atoms on a surface " . Burhop established the first research program in the field in an Australian university , employing scientific equipment that he brought back from Britain . The centrepiece of the research effort was a 300 keV accelerator that produced a homogeneous neutron beam , which he commissioned in August 1939 . He gave lectures on modern physics to the undergraduates , and on quantum mechanics to the postgraduates . 
