Building the Instruments and Software That Reveal How Molecules Work

The Gurusinghe Lab, also known as the Gru Lab, uses microwave radiation to study molecules with remarkable precision. By cooling molecules to near absolute zero and measuring how they rotate, researchers can determine their exact three-dimensional shapes, investigate how they bind weakly to one another, and even identify whether a molecule is left- or right-handed.

What makes the laboratory unusual is that its students build everything themselves. The scientific instruments, control software, and data infrastructure are designed and constructed in-house by Tennessee Tech undergraduate and graduate students.

Two active projects involve building open computing tools from the ground up. The first is SURF, an open-source graphical user interface developed with Python and Qt. SURF controls the laboratory’s spectrometer and acquires experimental data in real time.

The second is the Tennessee van der Waals Catalog (TVC), a new online molecular database for spectroscopists and theoreticians around the world. The database brings together decades of scattered molecular data in a single, searchable, open resource developed by chemistry and computer science students working side by side.

SURF is an open-source graphical interface developed with Python and Qt to control the laboratory's microwave spectrometer and acquire experimental data in real time.