Basic Energy Sciences

The Basic Energy Sciences (BES) program supports fundamental research focused in the natural sciences—in areas of direct relevance to DOE missions within chemical, condensed matter, materials, and geological sciences. The BES program plans, constructs, and operates major scientific user facilities to serve researchers worldwide. Sandia has significant BES activities in materials sciences, chemical sciences, and geosciences, hosting the Solid State Lighting Science (SSLS) Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) as well as two BES user facilities—the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT, joint with Los Alamos National Laboratory) and the Combustion Research Facility (CRF).

Sandia’s Materials Sciences project portfolio includes

• nanometer-scale surface & interface phenomena
• active assembly of dynamic adaptable materials
• nanomechanics & nanometallurgy of boundaries
• molecular nanocomposites
• novel electronic materials
• quantum electronic structures
• field-structured composites
• light-matter interactions

The Chemical Sciences effort encompasses

• chemical dynamics
• chemical kinetics
• reaction rate theory & modeling
• flame chemistry
• flame dynamics
• turbulent flame theory & modeling
• laser diagnostics
• interfacial science

The Geosciences Research Program’s primary interests are

• geochemistry of mineral-fluid interactions
• geophysical interrogation of the Earth’s crust
• basic properties of rocks, minerals, & fluids
• analytical instrumentation & computational methods

Facilities

The Solid State Lighting Science Energy Frontier Research Center is one of 46 new multi-million-dollar EFRCs funded by the DOE Office of Science devoted to understanding the mechanisms and defects in SSL semiconductor materials that presently limit the energy efficiency.

The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) is a DOE Nanoscale Science Research Center operating as a national user facility devoted to establishing the scientific principles that govern the design, performance, and integration of nanoscale materials.

The Combustion Research Facility (CRF) is a DOE research facility dedicated to employing chemical imaging and high-performance computing to elucidate the fundamental physics and chemistry that underpin the use of chemically based energy sources such as combustion.