We report on research and development carried out in the UMass EXO group to study scintillation of liquid Xenon towards optimizing the design and performance for a future EXO experiment. We are developing a test setup for APDs to understand the effects of temperature on the gain of the sensors and calibrate them for future use. A separate setup has been designed to qualitatively discern how well different materials reflect 178nm light, the wavelength of Xenon scintillation, in an attempt to effectively modify the structure of EXO. This involves constructing a liquefaction cell and purification manifold to produce maximally clean liquid Xenon for a testing environment. The end results of these investigations will be used to make the full scale EXO project more efficient to increase the probability of discovering neutrino-less double beta decay. To understand what we will see from detectors at EXO 200, the UMass EXO group has constructed a vacuum system to isolate APDs from any disturbances, whether they be foreign molecules or electrical interference. We aim to analyze signals given from known sources in order to further familiarize ourselves with expected and unexpected results.