Students and faculty have access to the Chapel Hill Analytical and Nanofabrication Laboratory, which maintains and operates state-of-the-art materials research facilities.

They also access to a wide variety of facilities located in various departments (including the Medical School): NMR laser lab, mechanical testing, mass spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction.

In addition, a variety of equipment is located in individual research laboratories. This includes equipment for thermal analysis; polymer synthesis; FTIR, UV-Vis, Raman, and photoluminescence spectroscopy; ellipsometry; CVD; MBE; thermal oxidation; AFM; RBS and ion channeling; electrical measurements; nonlinear optics; low temperatures; and high pressures.

Students are not limited to working only on the UNC campus and students routinely engage in research projects that involve off-site research projects.