The long-range goal of our research is to develop and advance nanoscale imaging techniques for extremely-high resolution sensing (chemical, thermal, optical, and magnetic) in practical complex environments and see the eventual adoption of these techniques by the scientific community in both academic and industrial settings.

The specific research is in two areas. One is to develop a transformative nanoscale chemical and thermal imaging microscopy based on advanced plasmonic fiber probes and use it to study materials in application-relevant environments (ambient and liquid). The other is to study surface reaction mechanisms on various catalytic and optic materials at the molecular level and the microscale level.