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Virginia Commonwealth University

Theses and Dissertations

2016

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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Time-Resolved Photoluminescence Studies Of Point Defects In Gan, Joy Dorene Mcnamara Jan 2016

Time-Resolved Photoluminescence Studies Of Point Defects In Gan, Joy Dorene Mcnamara

Theses and Dissertations

Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) measurements paired with steady-state photoluminescence (SSPL) measurements can help to determine the PL lifetime, shape and position of unresolved bands, capture coefficients, and concentrations of free electrons and defects.PL bands that are obscured in the SSPL spectra can be accurately revealed by TRPL measurements. TRPL measurements are able to show if the PL band originates from an internal transition between different states of the same defect. The main defect-related PL bands in high-purity GaN grown by hydride vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) which have been investigated are the ultraviolet, blue, green, yellow and red luminescence bands (UVL, BL, …


Understanding And Design Of An Arduino-Based Pid Controller, Dinesh Bista Jan 2016

Understanding And Design Of An Arduino-Based Pid Controller, Dinesh Bista

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents research and design of a Proportional, Integral, and Derivative (PID) controller that uses a microcontroller (Arduino) platform. The research part discusses the structure of a PID algorithm with some motivating work already performed with the Arduino-based PID controller from various fields. An inexpensive Arduino-based PID controller designed in the laboratory to control the temperature, consists of hardware parts: Arduino UNO, thermoelectric cooler, and electronic components while the software portion includes C/C++ programming. The PID parameters for a particular controller are found manually. The role of different PID parameters is discussed with the subsequent comparison between different modes …


Fabricating Superhydrophobic And Superoleophobic Surfaces With Multiscale Roughness Using Airbrush And Electrospray, Karam N. Almilaji Jan 2016

Fabricating Superhydrophobic And Superoleophobic Surfaces With Multiscale Roughness Using Airbrush And Electrospray, Karam N. Almilaji

Theses and Dissertations

Examples of superhydrophobic surfaces found in nature such as self-cleaning property of lotus leaf and walking on water ability of water strider have led to an extensive investigation in this area over the past few decades. When a water droplet rests on a textured surface, it may either form a liquid-solid-vapor composite interface by which the liquid droplet partially sits on air pockets or it may wet the surface in which the water replaces the trapped air depending on the surface roughness and the surface chemistry. Super water repellent surfaces have numerous applications in our daily life such as drag …


Electronic Structure And Stability Of Ligated Superatoms And Bimetallic Clusters, William H. Blades Jan 2016

Electronic Structure And Stability Of Ligated Superatoms And Bimetallic Clusters, William H. Blades

Theses and Dissertations

Quantum confinement in small metal clusters leads to a bunching of states into electronic shells reminiscent of shells in atoms. The addition of ligands can tune the valence electron count and electron distribution in metal clusters. A combined experimental and theoretical study of the reactivity of methanol with AlnIm clusters reveals that ligands can enhance the stability of clusters. In some cases the electronegative ligand may perturb the charge density of the metallic core generating active sites that can lead to the etching of the cluster. Also, an investigation is conducted to understand how the bonding …


The Dawn Of New Quantum Dots: Synthesis And Characterization Of Ge1-Xsnx Nanocrystals For Tunable Bandgaps., Richard J. Esteves Jan 2016

The Dawn Of New Quantum Dots: Synthesis And Characterization Of Ge1-Xsnx Nanocrystals For Tunable Bandgaps., Richard J. Esteves

Theses and Dissertations

Ge1-xSnx alloys are among a small class of benign semiconductors with composition tunable bandgaps in the near-infrared spectrum. As the amount of Sn is increased the band energy decreases and a transition from indirect to direct band structure occurs. Hence, they are prime candidates for fabrication of Si-compatible electronic and photonic devices, field effect transistors, and novel charge storage device applications. Success has been achieved with the growth of Ge1-xSnx thin film alloys with Sn compositions up to 34%. However, the synthesis of nanocrystalline alloys has proven difficult due to larger discrepancies (~14%) in …


Drying Methods For The Fabrication Of Polymer Foam Material, Dalton Echard Jan 2016

Drying Methods For The Fabrication Of Polymer Foam Material, Dalton Echard

Theses and Dissertations

This is a report on the study of the drying of nanoporous polymer foam material fabricated by photolithogtaphic methods. Three drying methods were employed, which were air drying, supercritical drying and freeze drying. After fabrication and drying, physical properties of the polymer foams were measured. These measurements included density of the material, Young’s modulus, surface area, and the shape of the skeletal particles. The measurements determined the effect of the polymer concentration and the effect of drying methods. It was determined that polymer concentration had a much larger effect on the properties of the materials than the drying method.


T-Duality And Double Field Theory, Nicholas T. King Jan 2016

T-Duality And Double Field Theory, Nicholas T. King

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to study a symmetry of string theory known as T-duality. We focus on a particular example establishing the equivalence between a quantized string moving in a circular space of radius R and a dual string moving in a similar space of radius 1/R . We will show that this duality implies that the momentum of the string in one picture becomes the number of times the string is wound around the circle in the dual picture. We present two proofs of T-duality. The first reflects the standard interpretation of T-duality as an isomorphism of …


Non-Conventional Approaches To Syntheses Of Ferromagnetic Nanomaterials, Dustin M. Clifford Jan 2016

Non-Conventional Approaches To Syntheses Of Ferromagnetic Nanomaterials, Dustin M. Clifford

Theses and Dissertations

The work of this dissertation is centered on two non-conventional synthetic approaches to ferromagnetic nanomaterials: high-throughput experimentation (HTE) (polyol process) and continuous flow (CF) synthesis (aqueous reduction and the polyol process). HTE was performed to investigate phase control between FexCo1-x and Co3-xFexOy. Exploration of synthesis limitations based on magnetic properties was achieved by reproducing Ms=210 emu/g. Morphological control of FexCo1-x alloy was achieved by formation of linear chains using an Hext. The final study of the FexCo1-x chains used DoE to …


Beyond Conventional C-Plane Gan-Based Light Emitting Diodes: A Systematic Exploration Of Leds On Semi-Polar Orientations, Morteza Monavarian Jan 2016

Beyond Conventional C-Plane Gan-Based Light Emitting Diodes: A Systematic Exploration Of Leds On Semi-Polar Orientations, Morteza Monavarian

Theses and Dissertations

Despite enormous efforts and investments, the efficiency of InGaN-based green and yellow-green light emitters remains relatively low, and that limits progress in developing full color display, laser diodes, and bright light sources for general lighting. The low efficiency of light emitting devices in the green-to-yellow spectral range, also known as the “Green Gap”, is considered a global concern in the LED industry. The polar c-plane orientation of GaN, which is the mainstay in the LED industry, suffers from polarization-induced separation of electrons and hole wavefunctions (also known as the “quantum confined Stark effect”) and low indium incorporation efficiency that …


Cluster Enhanced Nanopore Spectrometry, Amy Chavis Jan 2016

Cluster Enhanced Nanopore Spectrometry, Amy Chavis

Theses and Dissertations

Nanopore sensing is a label-free method used to characterize water-soluble molecules. Recent work describes how Au25(SG)18 clusters improve the single molecule nanopore spectrometry (SMNS) technique when analyzing polyethylene glycol (PEG). This thesis will further study and optimize the enhancement effect resulting from a cluster’s presence. Additionally, a model describing the interaction between a cluster and PEG is developed to assist in understanding this mechanism of enhancement. This thesis will also discuss expanding the SMNS method to detect peptides, using Au25(SG)18 for enhancement, and adjusting solution conditions to improve the sensitivity of the SMNS system …