Isidor Sauers (born 1948) is an Austrian-born American who is a physicist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He is a specialist on the properties of Sulfur hexafluoride (SF<sub>6</sub>), with an important patent and over 60 peer-reviewed academic papers.
His most notable paper, "Electron Attachment to the perfluoroalkanes" in Journal of Chemical Physics 78 (12) 7200-7216 has been cited 88 times since its publication in 1983.
In the early 1980s, Sauers developed a novel method by which to measure the degradation of Sulfur hexafluoride (SF<sub>6</sub>) in high-voltage systems. SF<sub>6</sub>, a hypervalent molecule, is used as a gaseous insulator in conjunction with solid insulating material in high voltage systems such as transmission lines, substations and switchgear. When the dielectric strength of SF<sub>6</sub> is exceeded, regions of high electrical stress can cause nearby gas to partially ionize and begin conducting, forming toxic products like SOF<sub>2</sub> or S<sub>2</sub>F<sub>10</sub>. This method allows scientists to detect the toxic by-products of SF<sub>6</sub> breakdown at very low concentrations (ppb) using an ion-molecule reaction cell and a negative ion mass spectrometer, as opposed to conventional methods such as electron impact mass spectrometry (MS), gas chromatography (GC) with thermal conductivity detection, gas chromatography with electron capture detection, or a combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.