Engineering Commons^™

Characterization And Fabrication Of Active Matrix Thin Film Transistors For An Addressable Microfluidic Electrowetting Channel Device, Seyeoul Kwon

Doctoral Dissertations

The characterization and fabrication of active matrix thin film transistors (TFTs) has been studied for an addressable microfluidic electrowetting channel device as application. A new transparent semiconductor material, Amorphous Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (a-IGZO), is used for TFT, which shows high electrical performance rather than amorphous silicon based TFT; higher mobility and even higher transparency. The purpose of this dissertation is to optimize each TFT process including the optimization of a-IGZO properties to achieve robust device for application. To minimize hysteresis of TFT curves, the gate dielectric is discussed extensively in this dissertation. By optimizing gas ratio of NH3SiH4, it …

Dependence Of Microstructure Evolution, Texture, And Mechanical Behavior Of A Mg Alloy On Thermo-Mechanical Input During Friction Stir Processing, Zhenzhen Yu

Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis, the relationship among friction stir processing (FSP) parameters, microstructure evolution, texture development, and mechanical hehavior of AZ31B Mg alloy was investigated.

First of all, in order to reveal the correlation among the deformation conditions, dynamic recrystallization (DRX) mechanisms, and microstructure evolution in the Mg alloy, hot compression tests at a wide range of Zener-Hollomon parameter (Z) values were conducted. Through optical microscopic examination, it was found out that above a critical Z value, twinning influences the DRX process resulting in a more effective grain refinement, which is manifested in a significant change in the slope of the …

Thin Film Combinatorial Synthesis Of Advanced Scintillation Materials, Jonathan Daniel Peak

Doctoral Dissertations

The development and application of a combinatorial sputtering thin film technique to screen potential scintillation material systems was investigated. The technique was first benchmarked by exploring the binary lutetium oxide-silicon oxide material system, which successfully identified the luminescence phases of the system, Lu2SiO5 (LSO) and Lu2Si2O7 (LPS). The second application was to optimize the activator concentration in cerium doped LSO. The successfully optimized cerium concentration in the thin film LSO of 0.34 atomic percent was much greater than the standard cerium concentration in single crystal LSO. This lead to an intensive study based on temperature dependent steady-state and lifetime photoluminescence …

Energetics And Kinetics Of Dislocation Initiation In The Stressed Volume At Small Scales, Tianlei Li

Doctoral Dissertations

Instrumented nanoindentation techniques have been widely used in characterizing mechanical behavior of materials in small length scales. For defect-free single crystals under nanoindentation, the onset of elastic-plastic transition is often shown by a sudden displacement burst in the measured load-displacement curve. It is believed to result from the homogeneous dislocation nucleation because the maximum shear stress at the pop-in load approaches the theoretical strength of the material and because statistical measurements agree with a thermally activated process of homogeneous dislocation nucleation. For single crystals with defects, the pop-in is believed to result from the sudden motion of pre-existing dislocations or …

Study Of Deformation Behavior Of Nanocrystalline Nickel Using Nanoindentation Techniques, Changli Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Nanocrystalline materials with grain size less than 100 nm have been receiving much attention because of their unparallel properties compared with their microcrystalline counterparts. Because of its high hardness, nanocrystalline nickel has been used for MEMS. Long term thermomechnical properties and deformation mechanism at both ambient and elevated temperatures need to be evaluated which is vital for reliability of its applications as structural material.

In this thesis, nanoindentation creep of nanocrystalline nickel with an as-deposited grain size of 14 nm was characterized at elevated temperatures. The nanoindentation creep rate was observed to scale with temperature and applied load (or stress), …

Laser Textured Calcium Phosphate Bio-Ceramic Coatings On Ti-6al-4v For Improved Wettability And Bone Cell Compatibility, Sameer R. Paital

Doctoral Dissertations

The interaction at the surfaces of load bearing implant biomaterials with tissues and physiological fluids is an area of crucial importance to all kinds of medical technologies. To achieve the best clinical outcome and restore the function of the diseased tissue, several surface engineering strategies have been discussed by scientific community throughout the world. In the current work, we are focusing on one such technique based on laser surface engineering to achieve the appropriate surface morphology and surface chemistry. Here by using a pulsed and continuous wave laser direct melting techniques we synthesize three dimensional textured surfaces of calcium phosphate …

Deformation Study Of Nanocrystalline Ni-Fe Alloy Using Synchrotron Diffraction, Li Li

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation addresses two critical issues in the deformation of nc metals and alloys: (1) A stress-induced genuine grain growth after the plastic deformation rather than just a change of the grain shape; (2) A systematically quantitative study of micrsostructural evolution during the plastic deformation.

These two critical issues point to the deformation of nc materials with the average-grain sizes within the range of 10 to 50 nm, which is the most interesting and controversial region in the current time. The current study provides a systematic and detailed microstructural evolution for this region, which is definitely beneficial for the investigation …

Investigation Of The Processing, Structure And Properties Of Poly(Phenylene Sulfide) (Pps) Melt Spun Fibers, Prabhakar Gulgunje

Doctoral Dissertations

Numerous publications are available on the structure and properties correlation of fibers spun from polymers with flexible chains such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), nylon, polypropylene. Also considerable amount of work is reported in fibers spun from rigid rod polymers like poly(p-phenylene terephthalamide) due to their value in high performance fibers category. However, very limited literature is available on the structure-properties relationship in fibers manufactured from poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS), a high performance polymer which possesses chain flexibility between above two classes of polymers. A few researchers have studied crystallization kinetics and the fibers by extruding the polymer using capillary rheometers. However, …

Monotonic And Cyclic Compression Behavior Of Bulk Metallic Glasses, Matthew Webster Freels

Doctoral Dissertations

The cyclic-compression behavior of a Cu45Zr45Al5Ag5 bulk metallic glass (BMG) was investigated in order to elucidate the damage initiation and growth mechanisms. The present Cu45Zr45Al5Ag5 BMG was found to have the highest fatigue-endurance limit for BMGs reported to date. Fracture under cyclic compression occurred in a pure shear mode. In addition to many shear bands and cracks, areas of “chipping” were commonly found on the outside surfaces of the fatigue specimens. Crack growth rates were found decrease with cycles.

The effects of the as-cast specimen size, cooling rate, and the free volume content on the monotonic and cyclic compression behavior …

Molecular Simulations Of Adsorption And Diffusion In Metal-Organic Frameworks (Mofs), Ruichang Xiong

Doctoral Dissertations

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are a new class of nanoporous materials that have received great interest since they were first synthesized in the late 1990s. Practical applications of MOFs are continuously being discovered as a better understanding of the properties of materials adsorbed within the nanopores of MOFs emerges. One such potential application is as a component of an explosive-sensing system. Another potential application is for hydrogen storage.

This work is focused on tailoring MOFs to adsorb/desorb the explosive, RDX. Classical grand canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations have been performed to calculate adsorption isotherms and self-diffusivities of …