Mechanics of Materials Commons^™

Hollow And Porous Plasmonic Nanostructures For Highly Efficient Chemical And Biological Sensing, Keng-Ku Liu

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) involves the collective and coherent oscillation of dielectrically confined conduction electrons. The LSPR wavelength of noble metal nanoparticles (such as gold, silver and copper), which falls into the visible and near infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, is sensitive to the composition, size, shape, dielectric properties of the surrounding medium, and proximity to other nanostructures (plasmon coupling). Based on the sensitivity of the surface plasmon resonance to the changes in the dielectric properties of the surrounding medium and the enhancement of the electromagnetic (EM) field in proximity of metal nanostructures, two important classes of plasmonic …

Characterizing Structure, Properties, And Deformation In Metallic Glasses And Olivine Using Instrumented Nanoindentation, Kelly Kranjc

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Micro- and nanomechanical testing can provide significant insight about the structure, properties, and behavior of materials. These techniques are nondestructive, require only limited amounts of material, and have been known to detect a brittle-to-ductile transition in mechanical behavior due to a size effect. This work utilizes this type of testing to explore fundamental questions about the structure, properties, and behavior of two disparate material systems: metallic glasses and olivine.

Metallic glasses are metallic alloys devoid of any long-range order. Their unique atomic structure imbues them with properties such as a high elastic strain limit, near-theoretical strengths, and the ability to …

Theory Of Carrier Transport From First Principles: Applications In Photovoltaic And Thermoelectric Materials, Alireza Faghaninia

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

New sources of energy that are environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and renewable are essential if we are to combat the effects of global climate change. Two of these sources are solar photovoltaic (PV) cells to convert sunlight into electricity and thermoelectric (TE) devices to convert heat to electricity. To be practical on a large scale, the properties (e.g. electrical conductivity, band gap, Seebeck coefficient, etc) of the the underlying materials must be improved significantly through judicious control of structure and composition. Significant understanding of materials properties is required to design and engineer new high-performing materials. First principles calculations using density functional …