The thesis was good enough, though, for Burhop to be awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship to study at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory under Lord Rutherford in 1933.
The scholarship included a first-class ticket to London on the liner RMS Oronsay.
At this time the Cavendish Laboratory was one of the leading centres of physics in the world.
In 1932, Cavendish laboratory scientists John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split the atomic nucleus, James Chadwick discovered the neutron, and Patrick Blackett and Giuseppe Occhialini confirmed the existence of the positron.
Burhop was supervised by a fellow Australian, Mark Oliphant.
He was initially assigned a task of investigating the diffusion of positive alkali metal ions on hot metal surfaces, but soon switch to a more interesting subject, the measurement of the excitation function for the pairs of deuterons producing a triton through nuclear fusion:
²
₁D
 + ²
₁D
 → ³
₁T
 + 
p
Burhop was able to observe the reaction at energies of less than 8 keV. He continued his investigations of X-rays and the Auger effect.
He conducted investigation of the probabilities of the ionisation of the K and L shells of silver, using the Born approximation.
In 1935, he produced a non-relativistic theory of the Auger effect .
This followed by a relativistic treatment in 1936 with Harrie Massey, another Australian expatriate fellow at the Cavendish.
His work on the Auger effect would culminate in a monograph, The Auger Effect and Other Radiationless Transitions (1952).

Before coming to Cambridge, Burhop had not engaged in political activities.
At Cambridge he encountered political debate generated by the suffering caused by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe.
While he rejected his parents' faith in favour of rationalist science, he did not reject their values, especially that of compassion for others, and there was no estrangement between them.
At Cambridge he embraced socialism, and believed that scientists had a moral responsibility to society, one that included fighting fascism.
The thesis was good enough, though, for Burhop to be awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship to study at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory under Lord Rutherford in 1933. The scholarship included a first-class ticket to London on the liner RMS Oronsay. At this time the Cavendish Laboratory was one of the leading centres of physics in the world. In 1932, Cavendish laboratory scientists John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton split the atomic nucleus, James Chadwick discovered the neutron, and Patrick Blackett and Giuseppe Occhialini confirmed the existence of the positron. Burhop was supervised by a fellow Australian, Mark Oliphant. He was initially assigned a task of investigating the diffusion of positive alkali metal ions on hot metal surfaces, but soon switch to a more interesting subject, the measurement of the excitation function for the pairs of deuterons producing a triton through nuclear fusion:
²
₁D
 + ²
₁D
 → ³
₁T
 + 
p
Burhop was able to observe the reaction at energies of less than 8 keV. He continued his investigations of X-rays and the Auger effect. He conducted investigation of the probabilities of the ionisation of the K and L shells of silver, using the Born approximation. In 1935, he produced a non-relativistic theory of the Auger effect . This followed by a relativistic treatment in 1936 with Harrie Massey, another Australian expatriate fellow at the Cavendish. His work on the Auger effect would culminate in a monograph, The Auger Effect and Other Radiationless Transitions (1952).
Before coming to Cambridge, Burhop had not engaged in political activities. At Cambridge he encountered political debate generated by the suffering caused by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe. While he rejected his parents' faith in favour of rationalist science, he did not reject their values, especially that of compassion for others, and there was no estrangement between them. At Cambridge he embraced socialism, and believed that scientists had a moral responsibility to society, one that included fighting fascism.
Eric Burhop