The initial focus was research on cosmic rays and the properties of the upper atmosphere as the science behind very high energetic particles bombarding the Earth was not much known.

[7] The dream of the founders was to establish a leading institute at Ahmedabad for conducting fundamental research on cosmic rays and some other selected areas of Physics.

The overall scientific programs expanded in the direction of a unified study of the various types of radiation imparted on the Earth, with the growth of the laboratory.

As the number of activities and workers were increasing, Ahmedabad Education Society decided to provide land for a separate building.

In the years of 1957–58, the scientists of PRL were taking part in a variety of scientific programs related to Earth sciences.

Thus, PRL started developing and implementing Meson Telescopes, Photometers, Geiger-Muller Counters, Ionosonde, Dobson Spectrometers, etc.

For the observations of airglow during the nighttime, ozone concentration in the atmosphere, the intensity of cosmic rays, etc., a research station at Gulmarg in Kashmir was established in 1955 by PRL.

As this station was giving fruitful results, it was decided to set up a complete High Altitude Research Laboratory at Gulmarg in 1963.

Research on lunar meteorites and rocks and Earth sciences was started as they were favorite subjects of Prof. Devendra Lal, who took charge of the position of director of PRL in 1972.

They were established with an aim to measure the speed of solar wind via observing radio source scintillations at the same time with all telescopes.

This program also looks into optical, infrared, X ray, and radio wavelengths to study the problems concerned to galactic and extragalactic cosmic phenomena.

This interdisciplinary research program works on a broad range of topics such as astrochemistry, foundations of quantum mechanics, luminescence dating, etc.

It also studies classical and quantum properties of light, atoms, molecules, molecular clusters via broad range of electromagnetic spectrum, high energy electrons, etc.

Some of the other research activities being conducted in this division are, but not limited to, solar X-ray and fluorescence emission from lunar surface, observations and modeling of trace gases, ions, and dust, in the lower atmosphere of Mars, reflectance spectroscopy of terrestrial and lunar samples, galactic chemical evolution, etc.

Nobel gas mass spectrometer, electron probe micro analysis(EPMA), etc., are the experimental facilities available at this division.

Current research programs include neutrino physics, physics beyond standard model, standard and non-standard CP violation, Fermion masses, super-symmetry, baryogenesis, phenomenology of higher-dimensional theories, QCD and quark gluon plasma, colour superconductivity, chiral symmetry breaking, study of quantum chaos in nuclear energy levels, group theoretical models and nuclear structures, study of atomic Rydberg states, stark spectroscopy of atomic levels, stability analysis of synchronized structures in coupled map networks.

Wide research domains of this division are atmospheric chemistry; aerosol, radiation, and climate; and plasma and neutral interactions in near-Earth space.

Measurement and modeling of trace gases and ozone are performed to investigate the dynamics and chemistry of the lower part of the atmosphere.

The research institution offers national awards to scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the field of science and technology.