Materials Science

From actinides and architected materials to polymers and energetic materials, LLNL’s Materials Science Division (MSD) is constantly innovating in materials science.

Our multidisciplinary teams strive to create novel materials for security and energy applications and to understand the properties and performance of materials subjected to mission-relevant conditions.

We use state-of-the-art characterization technologies coupled with modeling and simulation to meet current and future national security needs, executing world-leading, discovery-class research in the fields of materials physics and chemistry. With these capabilities, MSD supports a broad range of existing and emerging LLNL programs.

Understanding how materials behave in various conditions drives MSD scientists to develop new materials for diverse applications:

Feedstocks for additive manufacturing
Targets for the world’s most powerful laser system at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility
Technologies for the grid, transportation, and the environment through LLNL’s Laboratory for Energy Applications for the Future

Other efforts include innovations in materials assembly and processing to capture emergent properties at the nano-, meso-, and macroscale, as well as exploiting our characterization and synthesis expertise to optimize and scale the production of functional materials.

As a recognized and trusted leader for innovative, timely, and effective materials science solutions, MSD works closely with collaborators both inside and outside LLNL on a number of key national security and energy-focused initiatives. We also mentor the next generation of materials scientists through internship and postdoctoral fellowship programs.

Explore this page to learn more about the people, research, and resources that support our mission.

Ibo Matthews

Division Leader, Materials Science Division

925-424-6762

[email protected]

Harry Radousky

Deputy Division Leader, Operations

925-422-4478

[email protected]

Vincenzo Lordi

Deputy Division Leader, Science & Technology

925-423-2755

[email protected]

Group leader: Scott McCall

To learn more about our group, visit the Actinides and Lanthanide Science Group website.

Group leader: Nick Calta

To learn more about our group, visit the Advanced Materials Process Science group webpage.

Group leader: Marcus Worsley

To learn more about our group, visit the Applied and Emerging Materials group webpage.

Group leader: Tien Roehling

To learn more about our group, visit the Chemistry of Nuclear Materials group webpage.

Group leader: Anna Hiszpanski

To learn more about our group, visit the Functional Materials Synthesis and Integration group webpage.

Group leader: Wyatt Du Frane

To learn more about our group, visit the High Performance Materials group webpage.

Group leader: Sarah Baker

To learn more about our group, visit the Materials, Energy, and Carbon Security Group website.

Group leader: Michael Bagge-Hansen

We design, develop, and characterize nanoscale architectures for a wide array of applications ranging from water purification to energy storage and quantum devices.

To learn more about our research, visit the Nanoscale, Surface, and Interface Science Group website.

Our researchers specialize in the modeling and experimentation surrounding the development, characterization, and effectiveness of energetic and reactive materials. We explore the energy released during energetic chemical reactions, such as in comparing composites to single-molecule materials, the mechanical response of those materials, and their long-term aging and chemical compatibility. We improve the safety, performance, and understanding of energetic materials and investigate advanced manufacturing techniques and new materials development.

We have created novel energetic materials, scaled them up to custom feedstocks, manufactured them into unique systems, and tested their performance.

Our researchers support research at the Energetic Materials Center (EMC). Learn more about each research group by expanding the sections below.

Group leader: Kyle Sullivan

To learn more about our group, visit the Aging, Compatibility, and Manufacturing of Explosives group webpage.

Group leader: Sabrina DePiero

To learn more about our group, visit the Energetic Materials Formulation and Testing group webpage.

Group leader: Alan DeHope

To learn more about our group, visit the Explosives Performance Research and Technologies group webpage.

Group leader: Nir Goldman

To learn more about our group, visit the Material Dynamics and Kinetics group webpage.

Group leader: Keo Springer

To learn more about our group, visit the Reaction Dynamics group website.

Group leader: Ted Laurence

To learn more about our group, visit the Laser Material Interaction Science group webpage.

Group leader: Suhas Bhandarkar

To learn more about our group, visit the Laser Material Interaction Science group webpage.

Group leader: Diana VanBlarcom

To learn more about our group, visit the Optical Materials Group webpage.

Our researchers strive to understand the properties and performance of materials under various conditions to support fundamental science projects and programmatic missions across LLNL. Our capabilities allow us to directly observe and characterize complex material structure and events, leading to a fundamental understanding of properties and allowing us to define models that aid in the design of new and improved materials and devices. Learn more about our research groups by expanding the sections below.

Group leader: Jon Lee

To learn more about our group, visit the Materials Characterization Group webpage.

Group leader: Kristl Adams

To learn more about our group, visit the Materials and Analytical Spectroscopy / Spectrometry Group website.

Group leader: Joe McKeown

To learn more about our group, visit the Metallurgy and Advanced Microscopy group webpage.

Group leader: Brandon Chung

To learn more about our group, visit the Plutonium Science and Technology Group webapge.

Using high-performance computing resources, our experts build versatile massively parallel computing capabilities for investigating chemical, electronic, structural, and kinetic properties of materials. These tools address critical challenges in clean energy, nuclear nonproliferation, and extreme-condition science.

To support both basic science and programmatic missions, we strive to ensure that our computational resources provide reliable, accurate results for use in theoretical and experimental research and discovery.

Learn more about our research groups by expanding the sections below.

Group leader: Robert Rudd

We research materials and dense plasmas using atomistic and mesoscopic simulation codes, focusing on multiscale modeling of strength and other constitutive properties. Some of our simulations use more than a million processors on LLNL supercomputers and are at the frontiers of high-performance computing. Our expertise includes developing tools like Cardioid, ddcMD, and ParaDiS for massively parallel simulations.

To learn more about our research, visit the Computational Materials Science Group webpage.

Group leader: Tuan Anh Pham

We combine state-of-the-art quantum simulation approaches with high-performance computing resources for accurate prediction of a wide range of material properties, providing opportunities to discover new materials with specific targeted properties and to examine states of matter that are difficult to access experimentally.

To learn more about our research, visit the Quantum Simulations Group website.

Career Opportunities

Our exciting work would not be possible without dedicated staff who advance materials science every day. We’re always looking for talented scientists to join our multidisciplinary materials science teams.

Browse our open positions or read about our two summer student internship programs: Computational Chemistry and Materials Science Summer Institute and Materials and Chemistry Institute (MaCI) Summer Program.