The physics discipline of Tongji University was founded in the 1940s, practicing the purpose of "going forward with the motherland, helping the world through science and education", forming the discipline tradition of " making a thorough inquiry into truth, seeking factualism and innovation", and having cultivated a number of influential distinguished talents such as Li Tongbao, Zhang Yaoming etc. In 2012, School of Physics Science and Engineering was established, further constructed a discipline development model characterized by "combinations of theoretical and experimental research, and mechanism research and device development". At present, school has 85 faculty members, including 54 professors and 27 associate professors. Among them, there’re 2 academicians, 8 national talents, 9 national youth talents and 6 chief scientists of National Key Research Project; as well as 1 National Teaching Team, 1 National Natural Science Foundation Innovation Group, 1 Ministry of Education Innovation Team, 1 Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education and 1 Key Laboratory of Shanghai.

Currently, there are 1 discipline PhD program in physics, 4 sub-directions discipline PhD and Master degree granting majors, 1 postdoctoral program and 1 National Engineering Physics Teaching Base. In 2019, Applied Physics Major was selected as one of the National First-class Construction Majors, and was approved as Strengthening Fundamental Plan and Top Talent Training Plan of the Ministry of Education in 2020, for the purpose to cultivate social pillars and professional elites with the comprehensive characteristics of "basic knowledge, specific competency, innovative thinking, practical ability, global vision, and social responsibility". At present, the School has 811 graduate students including 427 PhD students and 384 master students from China or abroad, 42.54% of whom are from domestic first-class universities and disciplines.

Facing international academic frontiers and focusing on the field of "Wave and Material Microstructure", the school has formed the advantageous and characteristic research directions of "Phononics and Thermal Energy Science", " Photonic Crystals and Exotic Materials", "Precision Optics and Application", "Microstructure Physics and Devices", "Acoustic Basis and Application", etc. In the past five years, the school has taken the lead in undertaking 5 and participating in 6 National Key Research and Development Projects, and 8 National Natural Science Fund Key Projects; published 52 high-level SCI papers in journals such as Science, Nature series, PNAS, PRL, etc.; awarded 2 Second Prize of National Technical Invention, 1 First prize of Shanghai Natural Science, 1 Second Prize of Science and Technology Progress of the Ministry of Education, 1 Brillouin Award; 1 Foreign Academician of Academia Europaea and 1 SPIE Fellow; 38 as chief editor of the journal "Physics and Engineering" and editorial board of domestic or abroad important journals .

The school has introduced 1 full-time academician of Academia Europaea, built China-EU Joint Lab on Nanophononics, established extensive and in-depth international cooperation with research institutes in Europe, United States, etc., and took the lead in organizing the International Nanophononics Conference every year; in the past five years, organized 202 students to attend to oversea joint training programs or research exchange activities, and 66 students for short-term study abroad or international competitions, got 17 international physics competition awards and 49 students won awards; 118 high-level scholars from abroad visited the school, a total of 377 teachers of the school visited abroad, 54 teachers who attended to important international academic conferences in physics field gave talks.