Equipment and Capabilities

In PIRL, safety is priority number one. All research members are required to exercise situational awareness and maintain a safe work environment. Through investments in infrastructure, PIRL offers a variety of sophisticated instruments and analytical tools for studying material properties, thermal signatures, electronic and optical transitions, and biomolecular reactions. 

Using precision alignment tools, focal plane arrays, advanced optical instruments and probes, and device fabrication equipment, our student researchers use the flexible laboratory workspace to design, build, and test new approaches to data acquisition and analysis, as well as explore existing and new concepts regarding molecule-molecule interactions. PIRL also employs computational techniques such as data mining, experimental design, and process modeling. We also work on projects that rely on materials research methods and they include the development of compound semiconductor structures from the wafer-level using molecular beam epitaxy, a technique that enables atomic layer deposition in an ultra-high vacuum environment. Semiconductor structures are studied for the purpose of tailoring structural, quantum, and optical properties across a single wafer platform, which is critical for imaging across spatial, spectral, and temporal modalities.