Nanopowder and nanostructured film synthesis in low pressure flames

The combustion environment is useful for materials synthesis, both at ambient and reduced pressures. Low pressure flames can yield superior performance when collisional history, gas cost, or film uniformity are critical. The basic scaling laws for combustion synthesis are discussed, with a special emphasis on the role of pressure. Recent synthesis results from such flames are reviewed. Low pressure stagnation-point flames may also be used for testing and validating complex surface chemistry or particulate models, since the one-dimensional nature of the flow allows for most of the computational power to be applied to the more complex phenomena. In addition, these flows are amenable to a wide variety of diagnostic measurements and need only be probed along one spatial dimension, reducing the difficulty of characterization.