Van Allen Hall
Van Allen Hall is an eight-floor building where our department has offices, classes, colloquia, and seminars. Most of our faculty have offices here. Approximately half of our research labs are located in Van Allen Hall. The Van Allen Observatory is located on the roof of Van Allen Hall.
Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories (IATL)
The Iowa Advanced Technology Laboratories (IATL) is a three-floor building with research labs such as the Molecular Beam Epitaxy Facility (MBE), microfabrication facilities (MATfab), condensed matter and optical labs, and some of our faculty offices. This building was designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry.
Molecular Beam Epitaxy Laboratory
The Molecular Beam Epitaxy Laboratory (MBE), located in the Iowa Advanced Technology Labs (IATL), is part of the new Iowa Center for Research, Exploration, and Advanced Technology in Engineering and Sciences (Iowa CREATES), and managed by the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Materials, Fabrication, and Testing Facility
The Materials, Fabrication, and Testing Facility (MATFab) brings together cutting-edge instruments for the physical sciences and engineering into one convenient location on campus. The MATFab facility houses instrumentation for chemical and elemental analysis, imaging, metrology, and micro and nanofabrication.
Physics and Astronomy Shops
The Physics and Astronomy Shops is home to the Machine Shop, the Electronics Assembly Shop (EAS), and Electronics Repair and Calibration.
Quality Assurance Manager
The Quality Assurance Manager (QAM) determines the effectiveness and compliance of the Quality Management System to the ISO 9001 standard. The QAM facilitates the inspection and provides technical oversight to the manufacturing build and testing on mechanical, electronic components, assemblies, and products. The QAM is responsible for developing, implementing, and maintaining quality documentation for spaceflight projects and service centers. See the Physics and Astronomy Quality Assurance website for more information.
On-Campus Facilities
The University of Iowa was one of the first Universities to operate a Robotic Optical Telescope primarily for the use of students, both for instruction and research. The present instrument was installed in May 2015, and consists of an 0.51-meter-diameter Cassegrain reflector (Planewave CDK-20) on an Alt-Az mount, 8-position filter wheel, and SBIG CMOS camera (Aluma AC4040). It is located at the Winer Observatory in southern Arizona and operated over the Internet using a web-based scheduler (http://macroconsortium.org/index.php/observations).
The Information Technology Services Research Services department provides High-Performance Computing (HPC) resources, storage, scientific software, and support for members of the campus community. The ITS-RS Campus Engagement Team provides advanced skills training, and assistance with grant development, data stewardship, research data compliance, scientific software, and more.
The Iowa Initiative for Artificial Intelligence (IIAI)'s main goal is to support interdisciplinary artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning research collaborations at the University of Iowa. The formation of this initiative reflects strong institutional support to AI, machine learning, deep learning, and high-performance GPU computing across application areas.
The Central Research Microscopy Facility provides a wide variety of microscopy techniques for materials and biomedical investigators, an experienced staff and support for the beginner and experienced investigator. As one of the leading university microscopy facilities in the nation, the microscopy team is ready to support your research program.
Protostudios is a state-of-the-art rapid-prototyping facility with offices located in the MERGE office suite in downtown Iowa City and on the main floor of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. They work with you to develop fully functional prototypes of your idea, allowing you to test, redesign, determine manufacturing paths or demonstrate usability to investors.
Off-Campus Facilities
In addition to our labs in Van Allen Hall and the IATL building, we also use these major facilities:
Accelerators
- CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics)
- Fermilab (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)
- SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Laboratories
Observatories
- Hubble Space Telescope (NASA’s flagship optical/UV observatory)
- Chandra X-ray Observatory (NASA’s flagship X-ray observatory)
- HaloSat (NASA CubeSat designed, built, and operated by U. Iowa designed to survey the Milky Way’s hot X-ray halo)
- Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA, an NSF-funded array of radio telescopes working at mm/sub-mm wavelengths)
- Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA, a NSF-funded, ground-based array of radio telescopes)
- W. M. Keck Observatory (a ground-based set of 10m diameter telescopes working in the optical and near-IR)
- Gemini Observatory (a NSF-funded twin pair of telescopes placed in each hemisphere that observe in the optical/near-IR)
- Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS, a set of optical telescopes/spectrographs used to take observations of over 1/3 of the sky)
- XMM-Newton Observatory (X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, ESA’s flagship X-ray observatory)