Precision Imaging Research Lab (PIRL)

Our Mission

The mission of the Precision Imaging Research Laboratory (PIRL) [pronounced \pərl\] is to search and explore novel pathways to customized imaging for the primary purpose of ensuring that fundamental chemical, electronic, and photonic processes can be better understood and leveraged for the development of enabling technologies that improve quality of life. While housed in the School of Science and Engineering, PIRL attracts research collaborators from many academic departments including math, sciences, humanities, and medicine.

Our approach is to leverage scientific tools in order to "listen to a whisper beside a loudspeaker". In many applications, salient features are buried or hidden among more dominant information. It is our goal to think critically about what pieces of information are necessary to better understand a process or structure and then conduct experiments to test strategies that can best identify this information in a manner that can be verified.

We have tested this approach and identified hidden (partial) atomic layers in semiconductor structures and molecular interactions during a chemical reaction in a microfluidic device. For collaborative opportunities, contact Gregory Triplett (gregory.triplett(at)slu.edu)