Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

Surfactant Assisted Dispersion Of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes In Polyvinylpyrrolidone Solutions, Tennison Yu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Obtaining stable aqueous dispersions is one of the main challenges hindering a widespread and effective use of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) in many applications. Although it has been recognized that their versatility makes them an extremely attractive material, the unique molecular structure that gives SWNTs their unmatched electronic, mechanical, and thermal properties is also responsible for strong van der Waals interactions. This, combined with extremely high aspect ratios and flexibility, causes SWNTs to adhere strongly into tightly bundled ropes. In these bundles, SWNTs are not as useful as their linearized unbundled equivalents. Thus, in order to take advantage of their …

Plasmonic Optical Sensors: Performance Analysis And Engineering Towards Biosensing, Peipei Jia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing for quantitative analysis of chemical reactions and biological interactions has become one of the most promising applications of plasmonics. This thesis focuses on performance analysis for plasmonic sensors and implementation of plamonic optical sensors with novel nanofabrication techniques.

A universal performance analysis model is established for general two-dimensional plasmonic sensors. This model is based on the fundamental facts of surface plasmon theory. The sensitivity only depends on excitation light wavelength as well as dielectric properties of metal and dielectrics. The expression involves no structure-specified parameters, which validates this formula in broad cases of periodic, quasiperiodic …