Why Flexible TRPL Workflows Matter in Modern Materials Research
Modern materials research increasingly benefits from combining different dimensions of information, such as spatial, temporal, and spectral data. With Solira, PicoQuant introduces a flexible TRPL microscope designed to bring these photoluminescence characterization approaches into one research environment.
In this interview, Dr. Emilio Gutierrez-Partida, Product Manager for materials science at PicoQuant, explains the motivation behind the system and the design principles that shaped its development.
Q1: What motivated the development of Solira?
Over the last years, we observed that materials characterization workflows became increasingly fragmented. Researchers often combine multiple instruments to study different aspects of the same sample, for example time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL), imaging, carrier diffusion, or correlation measurements. That usually means compromises in workflow efficiency, reproducibility, and sometimes even data comparability.
In many labs, researchers still need several complementary measurements to answer one scientific question. Solira brings time-resolved photoluminescence together with methods such as steady-state PL, microscopy, imaging, carrier diffusion, and correlation experiments in one flexible system. This helps reduce experimental complexity and gives researchers a more complete view of their sample without moving between separate systems.
At the same time, materials research itself has become much broader. Researchers work on semiconductors, perovskites, nanomaterials, quantum emitters, LEDs, photocatalysts, and many other systems, all with very different experimental requirements. That diversity strongly influenced how we designed the system.
Q2: Solira strongly emphasizes flexibility. Why was that such an important design goal?
Because advanced materials are inherently diverse. Different materials can require different excitation wavelengths, detection schemes, spatial resolutions, or sample geometries. A system that is highly optimized for one experiment can quickly become limiting for another.
That is why we designed Solira around adaptability from the beginning. We wanted the system to support different excitation and detection configurations, multiple scanning approaches, optional spectroscopy coupling, and flexible sample handling within one platform rather than forcing users into a very narrow setup.
For example, some researchers may use steady-state PL to characterize emission behavior in LED materials, while others focus on TRPL imaging in semiconductor thin films, correlation measurements on single emitters, or carrier diffusion imaging across larger sample areas. Those workflows come with different technical requirements, but we wanted them to remain accessible without constantly changing between specialized systems.
The system layout was also a deliberate design decision. Solira provides flexible sample access and supports custom sample environments or additional instrumentation, giving researchers more freedom to adapt the setup to their experimental requirements.
The idea was not simply to add more features, but to make it easier for researchers to move between complementary characterization approaches.
Q3: Solira also highlights single-photon sensitivity. Why is that relevant for materials characterization?
Weak signals are extremely common in modern materials research. Researchers increasingly investigate low-emission materials, localized defects, nanoscale emitters, or fast recombination processes where detection sensitivity becomes critical.
We see this especially in areas like nanomaterials, semiconductor defects, or low quantum-yield systems, where conventional detection approaches can quickly reach their limits. Single-photon-sensitive detection enables reliable measurements of weak emission signals and subtle photophysical processes that might otherwise become difficult to resolve.
Importantly, this is not only relevant for quantum optics applications. High-sensitivity photon counting can also provide major advantages in material systems where signal levels are inherently low. In practice, higher sensitivity often means better signal quality, lower excitation powers, or shorter acquisition times, which can make experiments significantly more stable and reproducible.
Q4: Many researchers associate TRPL mainly with lifetime measurements at single points. How does Solira extend beyond that?
TRPL has evolved significantly over the last years. Researchers increasingly want to combine temporal information with spatial and spectral information instead of analyzing isolated measurement points alone. That is why we designed Solira not only for point measurements, but also for TRPL imaging and carrier diffusion imaging within one platform.
TRPL imaging can provide insight into charge transport limitations, trap-state distributions, defects, and local material inhomogeneities.
Carrier diffusion imaging builds on this time-resolved perspective but changes the measurement geometry: excitation and detection are spatially separated to observe how charge carriers move beyond the excitation spot. This adds information about transport behavior and helps researchers connect local recombination dynamics with carrier diffusion across the sample.
We see this quite often in perovskite materials, where spatially resolved TRPL can reveal lifetime variations introduced during laser patterning or processing steps that directly influence device performance. Combining these different methods helps researchers correlate local recombination dynamics, carrier transport behavior, and emission heterogeneity with overall device performance.
Q5: Spectroscopy coupling seems to play an important role in the Solira concept. Why was that integration important?
Microscopy and spectroscopy are still often treated as separate workflows, even though many scientific questions require both spatial and spectral information at the same time.
We wanted Solira to bridge that gap more naturally. By coupling the system with a spectrometer such as FluoTime 300 or our tunable wavelength selection unit FlexLambda, researchers can extend measurements into spectrally resolved workflows while still maintaining temporal information and spatial context within the same experiment.
This becomes particularly important in areas such as semiconductor research, perovskites, LEDs, quantum emitters, or nanomaterials, where peak, linewidth broadening, spectral diffusion, and excited-state dynamics are often closely interconnected.
From the beginning, the idea was not simply to add more features, but to make it easier for researchers to move between complementary characterization approaches.
Researchers want to combine temporal information with spatial and spectral information instead of analyzing isolated measurement points alone. That is why we designed Solira for TRPL imaging and carrier diffusion imaging within one platform.
Q6: Was there a particular type of application that influenced the development process most strongly?
Rather than focusing on one single application, we intentionally looked at recurring experimental challenges across many material systems.
For example:
- weak emission signals
- varying sample geometries
- large-area versus nanoscale measurements
- wavelength-dependent behavior
- complex multimodal workflows
- future expandability requirements
Semiconductors certainly played an important role because they combine many of these challenges simultaneously. But the overall design philosophy was broader from the beginning. That is also why Solira supports applications ranging from nanomaterials and LEDs to photocatalysis and single-emitter studies.
Q7: Looking ahead, where do you see materials characterization evolving in the next years?
I think workflows will become increasingly integrated and multidimensional. Researchers no longer want isolated parameters. They want to correlate spatial structure, spectral behavior, excited-state dynamics, transport phenomena, and external conditions within unified experiments. Temperature, excitation intensity, electrical bias, or degradation over time can each add another dimension to the measurement, and the number of possible combinations grows quickly. For example, Solira includes real-time excitation power monitoring, helping researchers perform intensity-dependent measurements under controlled and reproducible conditions.
At the same time, materials themselves are becoming more complex. Heterogeneous systems, interfaces, hybrid materials, and nanoscale structures all require more adaptable characterization approaches. We therefore expect flexibility, automation, programmable workflows, and multimodal analysis to become increasingly important.
As datasets become larger and more complex, open analysis approaches, Python-based workflows, and eventually AI-assisted, data-driven evaluation methods will also play a growing role in how researchers extract meaning from time-resolved materials measurements. At PicoQuant, we see this as an important direction for materials characterization and design our systems with flexibility to support evolving research workflows.
Systems like Solira are part of that broader transition toward more integrated materials characterization workflows.
Want to see how Solira fits your materials research workflow? Contact us to arrange a tailored demo, or explore the Solira product page to see how it can support your next materials study.
