Page • Figure 1 Figure 1 Shown here is the virtually accessible laser-heated stagnation flow reactor (LSFR) for characterizing redox chemistry of materials under extreme conditions. The LSFR is equipped with a solid-state laser to replicate the high energy flux and rapid heating rates that materials encounter in a concentrating solar reactor....
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Laura M. McCaslin
Staff Page • Senior Member of the Technical Staff, Combustion Research Facility. Biography Laura M. McCaslin is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff in the CRF at Sandia. Her research program centers on computing the dynamics of molecular systems and materials. Her research program spans many areas, including atmospheric chemistry, photochemistry, quantum...
Leonid Sheps
Staff Page • Principal Member of Technical Staff. Biography Leonid (Lenny) Sheps is a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratory. His current research interests include reaction kinetics and dynamics in the gas phase and at gas-liquid interfaces. He leads the Sandia effort within the joint Argonne-Sandia Consortium on Pressure-Dependent...
Long-Path Absorption
Page • Sensitive cavity-enhanced absorption spectrometry for gas-phase chemical kinetics Figure 1 (Left) SULI intern Zachary Decker operates the time-resolved broadband cavity-enhanced absorption spectrometer under the mentorship of PI Leonid Sheps. (Right) The time-resolved UV absorption spectrum of Criegee intermediate CH2OO Technical Details Absorption of photons from the IR to the UV...
Low-Temperature Gasoline Engine Combustion Laboratory
Page • Low-temperature gasoline combustion (LTGC) strategies encompass both homogeneous and stratified charge compression ignition (HCCI and SCCI) combustion technologies. These technologies achieve high, diesel-like efficiencies and very low emissions of NOx and particulate. In an LTGC engine, the piston compresses a dilute, premixed fuel/air charge that autoignites and burns volumetrically. The charge...
Lyle M. Pickett
Staff Page • Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Engine Combustion Research. Biography Since 2002, Lyle Pickett has been the Principal Investigator for the Spray Combustion project in the Engine Combustion Research Department of the Combustion Research Facility at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Lyle graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a...
Mass Spectrometric Methods
Page • At the CRF, researchers apply the power of mass analysis to investigate the details of complex chemical reaction networks such as those that drive combustion, autoignition, and tropospheric autoxidation.” Development and application of synchrotron photoionization methods have proved particularly powerful, and the CRF has benefited from a close collaborative relationship...
Multiphase Systems
Page • The interaction of gas phase molecules with other phases bridges two systems—condensed phase and gas phase—that are described by different paradigms of chemical physics. Our research in multiphase systems focuses on understanding how these regimes affect each other and the nature of the intermediary region between the phases. Two areas...
Near-Surface Imaging
Page • Figure 1 Gas-surface interfaces are present in many important chemical systems. From the valorization of methane at catalytically active surfaces, to the impinging of combustion processes on chemically inert interfaces, the complex heterogeneous chemistry and molecular energy transfer processes occurring in the gas phase very near to interfaces must be...
New engine optics to fuel future research
Post, November 29, 2017 • by Michael PadillaSandia team develops optical diagnostic that helps improve fuel economy while reducing emissionsA new optical device at Sandia National Laboratories that helps researchers image pollutants in combusting fuel sprays might lead to clearer skies in the future.An optical setup developed by researchers at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility and...
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Nils Hansen
Staff Page • Manager, R&D Science and Engineering. Visit my personal staff page here.
Nils Hansen Receives Wilhelm Jost Memorial Medal
Post, June 24, 2024 • Nils Hansen, a physical chemist, has been chosen to receive the Wilhelm Jost Memorial Medal and deliver the Jost memorial lectures, awarded by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities with guidance from the German Bunsen Society for Physical Chemistry. This award is given to an internationally acclaimed physical chemist...
Non-equilibrium Chemistry Driven by Transport
Page • Chemical reactions give rise to nascent products, termed non-equilibrium (NE), whose energy distribution does not correspond to that of either the reactants or the bath. Such NE product ensembles have different effective reactivity relative to their thermal equivalents, thereby impacting important macroscopic quantities in a complex reactive system. NE products...
Norm Bartelt
Staff Page • Materials Physics. Biography My work over the last forty years has focused on improving the understanding of the dynamical processes which are responsible the structure and morphology of solid surfaces. Much of this work has involved constructing statistical mechanical models that allow macroscopic behavior to be traced to atomic events. Most...
Off-Road Diesel Engine Combustion Laboratory
Page • Figure 1 Research in the Off-Road Diesel Engine Combustion Laboratory is conducted using a single-cylinder, 6.7L research engine. This size class represents one of the most ubiquitous engines in off-road applications. Shown below is the all-metal variant of this engine. We are in the process of developing an optical section in...
Olivia Krohn
Staff Page • Jill Hruby Postdoctoral Fellow. Biography Olivia Krohn is a Jill Hruby Postdoctoral Fellow at Sandia National Laboratories where she conducts research on inelastic collisions between molecules in crossed molecular beams. Her fellowship proposal outlined a technique to enhance collision energy resolution and quantum state control using quantum cascade lasers. She...
Optical and Laser Spectroscopy
Page • The Combustion Research Facility has a long history of leadership in laser diagnostics, developing and characterizing optical laser techniques to detect and quantify important gas-phase species, temperature, and particulate matter in temporally and spatially resolved measurements. Research in spectroscopic methods underlies this leadership. CRF researchers are developing capabilities that interrogate...
Outstanding Technology: Ducted Fuel Injection
Post, March 9, 2021 • Sandia researchers won an Outstanding Technology Development Award for its work on ducted fuel injection (DFI), a patented technology that slashes emissions of soot and nitrogen oxides from diesel engines by about 80% and is synergistic with sustainable liquid fuels like biodiesel. According to Chuck Mueller, who leads the project,...
Particle Inception from Gas Phase Reactions
Page • The physical chemistry that enables particles to form and grow from gas phase precursors is highly complex and spans systems from the highly oxygenated particles of secondary organic aerosol to the carbonaceous particles of combustion, i.e., soot. At the CRF, scientists apply advanced mass spectrometric methods to probe the gas...
Paul Miles honored with Lifetime Achievement Award
Post, December 17, 2025 • For more than 30 years, Paul Miles has driven breakthroughs in engine-combustion research at Sandia National Laboratories; in recognition of his transformative contributions, he has been honored with the DOE Vehicle Technologies Office Lifetime Achievement Award. Paul’s honor is the culmination of decades of conducting and supervising research projects funded...
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Page • Experimental Capabilities Computation & Theory Chemical Physics Engine Combustion Hydrogen Fusion & Plasma Materials Science
PEPICO
Page • Photoelectron Photoion Coincidence Spectroscopy (PEPICO): A New Tool for Chemical Physics of Complex-Forming Reactions Figure 1 Photoelectron image at a particular kinetic time giving the fingerprint for one chemical species in a reaction. Source: Sandia National Laboratories. Figure 2 A depiction of the radical thermometer for methyl peroxy radicals (CH3OO)....
Photoionization Mass Spectrometry
Page • Figure 1 The reactor tube and skimmer of one multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometer at the CRF, which is optimized for the study of low-pressure individual reactions and reaction sequences. Source: D. L. Osborn, Sandia National Laboratories Technical Details It is difficult to probe a complex chemical system holistically. Although a...
Plasma Diagnostics
Page • The laser diagnostic and mass spectrometry expertise at the CRF is also being applied to probe the chemical structure of nonequilibrium reacting plasmas. In particular, the influence of excited molecular and atomic species formed in a plasma discharge on fuel oxidation, plasma stability, and the reforming of CO2 to produce...
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