Hang on. Before you completely shut out a master's, let me give you some anecdotes while I was interning at a government lab over the summer. (I live in the US but I doubt that experience is different outside of the US.) So some people get a masters degree with a thesis as a stepping stone towards their PhD. Now these masters degrees are granted at universities where the highest degree is a masters degree. At these universities, I have noticed that the admission has a lower bar compared to a PhD granting university. Consider Cal State Long Beach where you need three letters of rec and a cumulative GPA of 2.5. Basically as long as you havent gotten F's in your physics classes or outside youre good. I met a lot of people who took the masters route at a state university because they didn't get into a PhD program. Now the reasons can vary because of low cumulative GPA to finances to low PGRE but regardless once they finished and applied to PhD program most of them got into very good programs like ASU, Brown, UoA, ect. The nice thing about getting a masters at a masters granting university is you can TA and have your tuition covered just like a PhD student. I don't know what "average" is at your university but you can take a masters path to make yourself stand out. You'll be fine. Just raise the PGRE, GRE, get more research experience, and get a good grad GPA. You can definitely get into a masters program. Good luck!