Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

Elucidation Of The Factors Affecting The Production And Properties Of Novel Wood Composites Made Using Renewable Nanomaterials As A Binder, Ezatollah Amini

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A novel application of cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) as a binding agent is proposed. In this work the utilization of CNF as a complete replacement for the conventional resin-adhesives in the formulation of particleboard (PB) was evaluated. PB panels with varying CNF contents and target densities were produced using a two-step (i.e. cold and hot) pressing process. For initial evaluation, the mechanical and physical properties of the manufactured panels were determined. The need to remove a considerable amount of water from the wood particle (WP)-CNF mixture during cold pressing, motivated the study of the furnish dewatering behavior. Dewatering was assessed through …

Effects Of Temperature And Nitrogen Depletion On Biodiesel Production Under Saline Conditions By A Mixed Algal Community, Sarah J. Kintner

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

The overall objective addressed in this research was to gain a better understanding of how native mixed cultures of phototrophic microorganisms from a saline system may be used for biodiesel production. Laboratory batch reactors were grown under variable temperatures and nitrogen concentrations with original inoculum from a hypersaline pond in central New Mexico. Growth at 40 C° led to lower lipid production, lower nitrate consumption, and less diverse communities than growth at 20° C. All communities were dominated by the cyanobacteria Plectonema except the in second experiment, where they were only 30% of the culture. In a second experiment with …

In Silico Sequence Optimization For The Reproducible Generation Of Dna Structures, Michael D. Tobiason

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Biologically, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecules have been used for information storage for more than 3 billion years. Today, modern synthesis tools have made it possible to use synthetic DNA molecules as a material for engineering nanoscale structures. These self-assembling structures are capable of both resolutions as fine as 4 angstroms and executing programed dynamic behavior. Numerous approaches for creating structures from DNA have been proposed and validated, however it remains commonplace for engineered systems to exhibit unexpected behaviors such as low formation yields, poor performance, or total failure. It is plausible that at least some of these behaviors arise due …

Quantitative Study Of The Antimicrobial Effects Of Silver On The Motility Of Escherichia Coli, Benjamin Russell

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades, the number of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections has grown to become a serious global threat. This rise can be attributed to the widespread misuse of antibiotics and the lack of newly developed drugs to fight resistant organisms. Novel bactericidal substances have, therefore, garnered significant research interest. Silver, due to its powerful antimicrobial effects, is one such substance. Silver is typically most effective in cationic form; however, advancements in nanotechnology have paved the way for the controlled fabrication of nano-silver. Silver nanoparticles have been shown to have increased antibacterial potency for a variety of reasons, including the release of …

Ultrasonic Wave Propagation In Copper/Graphene Metal Matrix Composites, Casey Lindbloom

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Emerging metallic composite materials implanted with graphene sheets are showing immense promise, with benefits being observed with regards to mechanical, thermal, and electrical material properties. This research aims to investigate the effects on ultrasonic wave propagation in Copper/Graphene Metal Matrix Composites (Cu/Gr MMCs) with varying graphene arrangements inspired from nacre and bone nanoscale material distributions. To accomplish this, the molecular dynamics (MD) method is utilized to simulate nanoscale wave propagation on a set of Cu/Gr MMCs with differing graphene arrangements and volume percentages ranging up to 4.56%. The computational model results are then analyzed to determine the variation in energy …

Synthesis Of Cellulose Nanocrystal-Gold Nanoparticle Hybrid System For Surface Plasmon-Enhanced Property, Mahshid Iraniparast

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been brought to the forefront of various applications, ranging from theranostics, to organic photovoltaics, to biosensing owing to their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) property. However, this property needs to be improved in order to allow for high sensitivity and quantitative detection of biomolecules. Hybrids of AuNPs with low-dielectric cellulose nanocrystal (CNCs) would yield enhancement of the LSPR property, which is driven by the confinement of electron oscillation at their interfaces. This study proposed a seed-mediated growth method to synthesize hybrids of CNCs-AuNPs. Sulfate groups on the surface of CNCs served as the sites for the …

Studies Of Initial Growth Of Gan On Inn, Alaa Alnami

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

III-nitride materials have recently attracted much attention for applications in both the microelectronics and optoelectronics. For optoelectronic devices, III-nitride materials with tunable energy band gaps can be used as the active region of devices to enhance the absorption or emission. A such material is indium nitride (InN), which along with gallium nitride (GaN) and aluminum nitride (AlN) embody the very real promise of forming the basis of a broad spectrum, a high efficiency solar cell. One of the remaining complications in incorporating InN into a solar cell design is the effects of the high temperature growth of the GaN crystal …

Optimized Production And Evaluation Of Cellulose Nanocrystals Derived From Pre-Extracted Kraft Pulp Of Different Wood Species, Gurshagan Kandhola

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Production of nanocellulose from a variety of naturally abundant, locally available and industrially significant wood species provides an opportunity for diversifying the portfolio of traditional pulp and paper industries. The U.S. has a prolific forest products industry with a well-established infrastructure that could be utilized for optimized and customized production of cellulose nanomaterials. However, to achieve that, it is important to a) understand how biorefining strategies for complete fractionation of biomass affect the downstream processing of pulp into nanocellulose, b) maximize the yields of cellulose nanocrystals and nanofibers (CNCs and CNFs) from pretreated raw materials, and c) evaluate if the …

Optical Angular Scatterometry: In-Line Approach For Roll-2-Roll And Nano-Imprint Fabrication Systems, Juan Jose Faria-Briceno

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

As critical dimensions continue to shrink and structures become more complex, metrology processes are challenging to implement during in-line nanomanufacturing. Non-destructive, non-contact, and high-speed conditions are required to achieve proper metrology processes during in-line manufacturing. Optical scatterometry is a nanoscale metrology tool widely used in integrated circuit manufacturing for characterization and quality control. However, most applications of optical scatterometry operate off-line. A high-speed, in-line, non-contact, non-destructive scatterometry angular system has been demonstrated in this work to scan pattern surfaces during real-time nano-fabrication.

Our system has demonstrated scanning capabilities using flat, 1D and 2D complex structures. The flat surface samples consist …

Near-Field And Far-Field Microscopic And Spectroscopic Characterizations Of Coupled Plasmonic, Excitonic And Polymeric Materials, Chih-Feng Wang

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

The properties of localized surface plasmons (LSP) have been broadly utilized for chemical sensing, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, biomedical imaging and photothermal treatments. By exploiting well-established plasmonic effects, the spectroscopic investigation of intriguing quantum phenomena, such as excitonic interband and intersubband (ISB) transitions in semiconductor heterostructures, was examined and extended in both far- and near-field optical measurements. For far-field characterization, we used colloidal plasmonic Au nanorods (AuNRs) to increase the quantum efficiency of InGaAs/GaAs single quantum well. By analyzing the temperature-dependent photoluminescence enhancement as a function of GaAs capping layer thickness, we attributed the mechanism of the LSP enhancement to …

Synthesis Of Vo2/Poly(Mma-Co-Dmemuabr) Antimicrobial/Thermochromic Dual-Functional Coating And Reactivity Ratios Study, Yixian Liu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Antimicrobial/thermochromic dual-functional coatings were successfully synthesized via UV-curing. The quaternary ammonium compound (QAC) N,N-dimethyl-N-{2-[(2-methylprop-2-enoyl)oxy]ethyl}undecane-1-aminium bromide (dMEMUABr) was synthesized and copolymerized with methyl methacrylate (MMA) for antimicrobial properties. Vanadium oxide (VO₂) nanoparticles were evenly dispersed within the coating, providing thermochromic properties. The dual-functional coating showed high luminous transmittance (T_lum(25°C) =36.1 %) and solar energy modulation ( T_sol=5.8 %). 90.3 % of bacteria reduction was observed against Escherichia coli within 24 h contact. To further understand the sequence distribution of the copolymer poly(MMA-co-dMEMUABr), the reactivity ratios of MMA and dMEMUABr monomer were studied and compared under thermal …

Extreme Dynamics Of Nanomaterials Under High-Rate Mechanical Stimuli, Wanting Xie

Doctoral Dissertations

Nanomaterials demonstrate novel mechanical properties attributed to the extremely large interfacial area. At quasi-static rates, the interfacial interactions are crucial in mechanical behaviors, however, materials under extreme mechanical stimuli are rarely studied at nanoscale. With an advanced laser-induced projectile impact test, we perform supersonic impact of micro-projectiles on polymer films, multilayer graphene, carbon- based nanocomposites membranes as well as individual micro-fibers, to study the interface interactions in the high-rate regime, and develop a simplified model to characterize the ballistic performance of materials.

Top-Down And Bottom-Up Fabrication Of Key Components In Miniature Energy Storage Devices, Wenhao Li

Doctoral Dissertations

The advent of miniature electronic devices demands power sources of commensurate form factors. This spurs the research of micro energy storage devices, e.g., 3D microbatteries. A 3D microbattery contains nonplanar microelectrodes with high aspect ratio and high surface area, separated by a nanoscale electrolyte. The device takes up a total volume as small as 10 mm³, allowing it to serve on a chip and to provide power in-situ. The marriage of nanotechnology and electrochemical energy storage makes microbattery research a fascinating field with both scientific excitement and application prospect. However, successful fabrication of well-functioned key components …

Bioinspired Complex Nanoarchitectures By Dna Supramolecular Polymerization, Laura A. Lanier

Doctoral Dissertations

Bioinspired nanoarchitectures are of great interest for applications in fields such as nanomedicine, tissue engineering, and biosensing. With this interest, understanding how the physical properties of these complex nanostructures relate to their function is increasingly important. This dissertation describes the creation of complex nanoarchitectures with controlled structure and the investigation of the effect of nanocarrier physical properties on cell uptake for applications in nanomedicine. DNA self-assembly by supramolecular polymerization was chosen to create complex nanostructures of controlled architectures. We demonstrated that the supramolecular polymerization of DNA known as hybridization chain reaction (HCR) is in fact a living polymerization. The living …

Engineering Nanomaterials For Imaging And Therapy Of Bacteria And Biofilm-Associated Infections, Akash Gupta

Doctoral Dissertations

Infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria pose a serious global burden of mortality, causing thousands of deaths each year. The “superbug” risk is further exacerbated by chronic infections generated from antibiotic-resistant biofilms that are highly resistant to available treatments. Synthetic macromolecules such as polymers and nanoparticles have emerged as promising antimicrobials. Moreover, ability to modulate nanomaterial interaction with bacterial cellular systems plays a pivotal role in improving the efficacy of the strategy. In the initial studies on engineering nanoparticle surface chemistry, I investigated the role played by surface ligands in determining the antimicrobial activity of the nanoparticles. In further study, …

Modeling And Simulation Of Driven Nanopatterning Of Bulk-Material And Thin-Film Surfaces, Ashish Kumar

Doctoral Dissertations

Material nanostructures such as nanowires, quantum dots, and nanorings have a wide variety of applications in electronic and photonic devices among numerous others. Assembling uniformly arranged and consistently sized nanostructure patterns on solid material surfaces is a major challenge for nanotechnology. This dissertation focuses on developing predictive models capable of simulation and analysis of such nanopattern formation on bulk material and strained thin film surfaces. Single-layer atomic clusters (islands) of sizes larger than a critical size on crystalline conducting substrates undergo morphological instabilities when driven by an externally applied electric field or thermal gradient. We have conducted a systematic and …

Function And Dissipation In Finite State Automata - From Computing To Intelligence And Back, Natesh Ganesh

Doctoral Dissertations

Society has benefited from the technological revolution and the tremendous growth in computing powered by Moore's law. However, we are fast approaching the ultimate physical limits in terms of both device sizes and the associated energy dissipation. It is important to characterize these limits in a physically grounded and implementation-agnostic manner, in order to capture the fundamental energy dissipation costs associated with performing computing operations with classical information in nano-scale quantum systems. It is also necessary to identify and understand the effect of quantum in-distinguishability, noise, and device variability on these dissipation limits. Identifying these parameters is crucial to designing …

Novel Avenues Toward Controlling The Photophysical Properties Of Ultra-Small Silicon Quantum Dots, Mohammed Abdelhameed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Quantum dots (QDs) have attracted an increasing attention in the last decade over many conventional organic dyes. This is due to their unique optical properties including broad absorption spectra, high photostability, and size-tunable photoluminescence (PL). However, some toxicity concerns associated with traditional quantum dots have hindered their wide applicability. Interestingly, silicon quantum dots (SQDs) have been shown to be more advantageous than most of QDs thanks to their excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, low cytotoxicity, and versatile surface functionalization capability. Thus, SQDs are promising candidates for various biological and biomedical applications such as bioimaging, biosensing, and photodynamic therapy. Unfortunately, only a …

Diagnostic Sequence Detection Against A Complex Background Using A Dna Molecular Computation Framework, Adan Leon Myers Y Gutierrez

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Diagnostic assays are designed to detect a unique analyte profile in a disease of interest. Nucleic acids contain an information-dense sequence, and thus are ideal candidates for unique analytes. The gold-standard of nucleic-acid-based detection is PCR which has high sensitivity, but involves time, expertise, and cost. DNA molecular logic technology holds much promise as an alternative molecular detection method due to the potential to save cost and expertise, while also achieving a high sensitivity. However, nucleic acid detection in biomedical applications carries with it the difficulty of choice of appropriate sequence and potential biological sample background.

This work describes the …

Laser-Spark Multicharged Ion Implantation System ‒ Application In Ion Implantation And Neural Deposition Of Carbon In Nickel (111), Oguzhan Balki

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Carbon ions generated by ablation of a carbon target using an Nd:YAG laser pulse (wavelength λ = 1064 nm, pulse width τ = 7 ns, and laser fluence of 10-110 J/cm²) are characterized. Time-of-flight analyzer, a three-mesh retarding field analyzer, and an electrostatic ion energy analyzer are used to study the charge and energy of carbon ions generated by laser ablation. The dependencies of the ion signal on the laser fluence, laser focal point position relative to target surface, and the acceleration voltage are described. Up to C⁴⁺ are observed. When no acceleration voltage is applied between …

A Multicarrier Technique For Monte Carlo Simulation Of Electrothermal Transport In Nanoelectronics, Tyler J. Spence

Doctoral Dissertations

The field of microelectronics plays an important role in many areas of engineering and science, being ubiquitous in aerospace, industrial manufacturing, biotechnology, and many other fields. Today, many micro- and nanoscale electronic devices are integrated into one package. e capacity to simulate new devices accurately is critical to the engineering design process, as device engineers use simulations to predict performance characteristics and identify potential issues before fabrication. A problem of particular interest is the simulation of devices which exhibit exotic behaviors due to non-equilibrium thermodynamics and thermal effects such as self-heating. Frequently, it is desirable to predict the level of …

Application Of Halloysite Nanotubes In Bone Disease Remediation And Bone Regeneration, Yangyang Luo

Doctoral Dissertations

Customized patient therapy has been a major research focus in recent years. There are two research fields that have made a significant contribution to realizing individualized-based treatment: targeted drug delivery and three-dimensional (3D) printing technology. With benefit from the advances in nanotechnology and biomaterial science, various drug delivery systems have been established to provide precise control of therapeutic agents release in time and space. The emergence of three-dimensional (3D) printing technology enables the fabrication of complicated structures that effectively mimic native tissues and makes it possible to print patient-specific implants. My dissertation research used a clay nanoparticle, halloysite, to develop …

Minimalistic Peptide-Based Supramolecular Systems Relevant To The Chemical Origin Of Life, Daniela Kroiss

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

All forms of life are based on biopolymers, which are made up of a selection of simple building blocks, such as amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acids and sugars. Their individual properties govern their interactions, giving rise to complex supramolecular structures with highly specialized functionality, including ligand recognition, catalysis and compartmentalization. In this thesis, we aim to answer the question whether short peptides could have acted as precursors of modern proteins during prebiotic evolution. Using a combination of experimental and computational techniques, we screened a large molecular search space for peptide sequences that are capable of forming supramolecular complexes with adenosine …

Roles Of Surfactant And Binary Polymers On Dissolution Enhancement Of Bcs Ii Drugs From Nanocomposites And Amorphous Solid Dispersions, Md Mahbubur Rahman

Dissertations

Drug nanocomposites and amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) are two major formulation platforms used for the bioavailability enhancement of BCS Class II drugs. The major drawback of nanocomposites is their inability to attain high drug supersaturation during in vitro (<50% relative supersaturation) and in vivo dissolution. On the other hand, formulating an amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) with high drug loading (>20%) that releases drug rapidly, while generating and maintaining high supersaturation over at least three hours is challenging. The goal of this thesis is to develop a fundamental understanding of the impact of anionic surfactants–polymers on in vitro drug release from nanocomposites and ASDs, while addressing the above challenges. To achieve this goal, the following objectives are set: (1) compare griseofulvin …

Enzymatic Biofuel Cells In A Sandwich Geometry With Compressed Carbon Nanotubes/Enzyme Electrodes & Hybrid Patch Applications, Biao Leng

Dissertations

Enzymatic biofuel cells (EBFCs) convert the chemical energy of biofuels, such as glucose and methanol, into electrical energy by employing enzymes as catalysts. In contrast to conventional fuel cells, EBFCs have a simple membrane-free fuel cell design due to the high catalytic specificity of the enzymes, but the power densities obtained are lower. Although the primary goal of research on EBFCs has been to develop a sustainable power source that can be directly implanted in the human body to power bio-devices, other applications such as the use of a flexible film or fuel cell patch as a wearable power source …

Wave Function Engineering In Cdse/Pbs Core/Shell Nanocrystal Heterostructures, Brian Matthew Wieliczka

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Colloidal semiconducting nanocrystals hold significant potential for third generation photovoltaics as solution processable materials that can surpass the Shockley-Queisser limit through multiexciton generation. In pursuit of this goal, the synthesis and optical characterization of CdSe/PbS core/shell quantum dots is reported. The spectroscopic behavior of these particles demonstrates their potential for use in optoelectronic devices, taking advantage of wave function engineering of the electron and hole. The rock salt PbS shell grows on all sides of the underlying zinc blende CdSe quantum dot, creating a core/shell structure. With increasing shell thickness, the band edge absorption and photoluminescence transitions decrease in energy …

Increasing The Functionality Of Additive Manufacturing Through Atmospheric Microplasma And Nanotechnology, Alexander Jon Ulrich

Doctoral Dissertations

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been changing the manufacturing landscape for the last 20 years. As the interest and demand for both polymer and metal-based 3D printing has grown, the materials and machines used have increased in capabilities. Despite the growth and advancement, there are still a large number of improvements that can be made to add functionality to 3D printers. Metal AM, a subcategory of 3D printing, has garnered much attention among industrial applications with large companies such as General Electric trying to implement the technology to increase innovative designs for motors. Some of the limitations on AM have to …

A Study Of Protein And Peptide-Directed Nanoparticle Synthesis For Catalytic Materials, Abdollah Mosleh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanoparticles have received much attentions due to their unique properties that makes them suitable candidates for a broad range of applications. As the size of particles decreases, their surface area-to-volume ratio would increase which is the main cause of much attention. In addition to the size, their morphologies and compositions may also play important roles for defining unique properties. Nanoparticle synthesis include both bottom-up and top-down strategies. To control the process of inorganic nanoparticles synthesis one could follow the bottom-up approach to have atom-level control over their compositions, morphologies, phases, and sizes which is the subject of this work. Due …

Organically Modified Inorganic Nanoparticles For Halochromic Ionophores And Nucleic Acids, William Johnston

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, four nanoparticle reaction schemes were developed as substrates for halochromic dyes or nucleic acids. The reaction schemes include the use of two substrates: silica nanoparticles and halloysite nanotubes. The protocols can incorporate silica (SiO2) nanoparticles and halloysite aluminosilicate (AlO2SiO2) nanotubes due to the presence of silane groups on the surface of either substrate. The reaction schemes are presented along with detailed protocols which were written to facilitate both reproducibility and to serve as an aid to further study and for easy modification of the protocol to suit a researcher's needs. The data is discussed in the materials …

Rheological Investigations Of Self-Assembled Block Copolymer Nanocomposites With Complex Architectures, Benjamin Yavitt

Doctoral Dissertations

The self-assembly of block copolymers (BCP) into microphase separated structures is an attractive route to template and assemble functional nanoparticles (NP) into highly ordered nanocomposites and is central to the “bottom up” fabrication of future materials with tunable electronic, optical, magnetic, and mechanical properties. The optimization of the co-assembly requires an understanding of the fundamentals of phase behavior, intermolecular interactions and dynamics of the polymeric structure. Rheology is a novel characterization tool to investigate these processes in such systems that are not accessible by other means. With the combination of X-ray scattering techniques, structure-property relationships are determined as a function …