Abstract: Soot from combustion emissions has a negative impact on human health and the environment. Understanding and controlling soot formation is desirable to reduce this negative impact, especially as energy demands continue to increase. In this work, a range of fundamental combustion experiments are performed to better understand the soot formation process, and to develop diagnostics for measuring soot properties. First, studies on the effects of doping the flame with different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)...