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Full-Text Articles in Physics
Light Matter Interaction In Single Molecule Magnets, Rebecca Cebulka
Light Matter Interaction In Single Molecule Magnets, Rebecca Cebulka
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation includes a series of experimental realizations which focus on studying the coupling between photons and single-molecule magnets (SMMs) in both the weak and strong coupling regimes. In the weak coupling regime, the aim is to achieve coherent control over the time evolution of the spin of SMMs while applying rapid microwave pulses at sub-Kelvin temperatures, where polarization of the spin bath may be achieved without large magnetic fields, allowing the suppression of dipolar dephasing. The continuing results of this experiment will be to provide a window into fundamental sources of decoherence in single-crystal SMMs in an energy range …
A Theoretical Investigation Of Small Organic Molecules On Transition Metal Surfaces, Walter Malone
A Theoretical Investigation Of Small Organic Molecules On Transition Metal Surfaces, Walter Malone
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
With the ever growing number of proposed desnity functional theory (DFT) functionals it becomes necessary to thoroughly screen any new method to determine its merit. Especially relevant methods include a proper description of the van der Waals (vdW) interaction, which can prove vital to a correct description of a myriad of systems of technological importance. The first part of this dissertation explores the utility of several vdW-inclusive DFT functionals including optB86b-vdW, optB88-vdW, optPBE-vdW, revPBE-vdW, rPW86-vdW2, and SCAN+rVV10 by applying them to model systems of small organic molecules, pyridine and thiophene, on transition metal surfaces. Overall, we find the optB88-vdW functional …
Chemistry And Dissipation At Mineral Surfaces In The Space Environment, William Tucker
Chemistry And Dissipation At Mineral Surfaces In The Space Environment, William Tucker
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The composition and morphology of mineral surfaces is known to play an important role in various phenomena relevant to planetary science. For example, the synthesis and processing of complex organics likely occurs at mineral surfaces strongly affected by the space environment. Furthermore, the dissipative and adhesive properties of dust grains may depend strongly on the chemical state of the surface including the presence of dangling bonds, adsorbates, and radicals. In this dissertation, experimental results are first presented which demonstrate that mineral grains subjected to high temperatures in a reducing environment lead to iron nanoparticles which are strongly catalytic for the …
High Performance Liquid Crystal Devices For Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality, Md Javed Rouf Talukder
High Performance Liquid Crystal Devices For Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality, Md Javed Rouf Talukder
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
See-through augmented reality and virtual reality displays are emerging due to their widespread applications in education, engineering design, medical, retail, transportation, automotive, aerospace, gaming, and entertainment. For augmented reality and virtual reality displays, high-resolution density, high luminance, fast response time and high ambient contrast ratio are critically needed. High-resolution density helps eliminate the screen-door effect, high luminance and fast response time enable low duty ratio operation, which plays a key role for suppressing image blurs. A dimmer placed in front of AR display helps to control the incident background light, which in turn improves the image contrast. In this dissertation, …
Processing Of Advanced Infrared Materials, Daniel Mcgill
Processing Of Advanced Infrared Materials, Daniel Mcgill
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Infrared transparent glassy and crystalline materials often have unique and complex processing requirements but are an important class of materials for such applications as optical windows, lenses, waveplates, polarizers and beam splitters. This thesis investigates two specific materials, one amorphous and one crystalline, that are candidates for use in the short and midwave-infrared and mid and longwave infrared, respectively. It is demonstrated that an innovative uniaxial sintering process, which uses a sacrificial pressure-transmitting medium, can be used to fully densify a 70TeO2-20WO3-10La2O3 (TWL) glass powder. The characteristics of the sintered TWL glass is compared to that of a parent glass …
Nanoscale Functional Imaging By Tailoring Light-Matter Interaction To Explore Organic And Biological Systems, Negar Otrooshi
Nanoscale Functional Imaging By Tailoring Light-Matter Interaction To Explore Organic And Biological Systems, Negar Otrooshi
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Probing molecular systems with light has been critical to deepen our understanding of life sciences. However, conventional analytical methods fail to resolve small quantities of molecules or the heterogeneity in molecules assembled into complex systems. This bottleneck is mostly attributed to light diffraction limit. In recent years, the successful implementation of new approaches to achieve sub-wavelength chemical speciation with an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) has paved the way to a deeper understanding of the effect of local composition and structure on the functional properties of a larger scale system. The combination of infrared light, to excite the vibrational modes of …
Asteroid Surfaces: The Importance Of Cohesive Forces, Keanna Jardine
Asteroid Surfaces: The Importance Of Cohesive Forces, Keanna Jardine
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Adhesive forces play a significant role on airless bodies due to their weak gravities. Investigating adhesion at the surface of asteroids and their constituent components is vital to understanding their formation and evolution. Previous research has been done to understand the interaction of micron-sized spheres to planar surfaces and sphere-to-sphere interactions, which have been used to develop models of asteroid surfaces. Our investigation experimentally investigates adhesion through atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements between JSC-1 simulant particles and several AFM tips, including a typical pyramidal gold tip and microspheres of sizes 2 μm and 15 μm. The samples of JSC-1 consist …
Broadband Mid-Infrared Frequency Combs Generated Via Frequency Division, Qitian Ru
Broadband Mid-Infrared Frequency Combs Generated Via Frequency Division, Qitian Ru
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Frequency combs have revolutionized metrology and demonstrated numerous applications in science and technology. Combs operating in the mid-infrared region could be beneficial for molecular spectroscopy for several reasons. First, numerous molecules have their spectroscopic signatures in this region. Furthermore, the atmospheric window (3-5μm and 8-14μm) is located here. Additionally, a mid-infrared frequency comb could be employed as a diagnostic tool for the many components of human breath, as well as for detection of harmful gases and contaminants in the atmosphere. In this thesis, I used synchronously pumped subharmonic optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) operating at degeneracy to produce ultra-broadband outputs near …
Holographic Optical Elements For Visible Light Applications In Photo-Thermo-Refractive Glass, Fedor Kompan
Holographic Optical Elements For Visible Light Applications In Photo-Thermo-Refractive Glass, Fedor Kompan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation reports on design and fabrication of various optical elements in Photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass. An ability to produce complex holographic optical elements (HOEs) for the visible spectral region appears very beneficial for variety of applications, however, it is limited due to photosensitivity of the glass confined within the UV region. First two parts of this dissertation present two independent approaches to the problem of holographic recording using visible radiation. The first method involves modification of the original PTR glass rendering it photosensitive to radiation in the visible spectral region and, thus, making possible the recording of holograms in PTR …
Imaging Through Glass-Air Anderson Localizing Optical Fiber, Jian Zhao
Imaging Through Glass-Air Anderson Localizing Optical Fiber, Jian Zhao
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The fiber-optic imaging system enables imaging deeply into hollow tissue tracts or organs of biological objects in a minimally invasive way, which are inaccessible to conventional microscopy. It is the key technology to visualize biological objects in biomedical research and clinical applications. The fiber-optic imaging system should be able to deliver a high-quality image to resolve the details of cell morphology in vivo and in real time with a miniaturized imaging unit. It also has to be insensitive to environmental perturbations, such as mechanical bending or temperature variations. Besides, both coherent and incoherent light sources should be compatible with the …
Fundamental Properties Of Metallic Nanolasers, William Hayenga
Fundamental Properties Of Metallic Nanolasers, William Hayenga
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The last two decades have witnessed tremendous advancements in the area of nanophotonics and plasmonics, which has helped propel the development of integrated photonic sources. Of central importance to such circuits is compact, scalable, low threshold, and efficient coherent sources that can be driven at high modulation frequencies. In this regard, metallic nanolasers offer a unique platform. Their introduction has enabled confinement of light at a subwavelength scale and the ultra-small size of the modes afforded by these structures allows for cavity enhancing effects that can help facilitate thresholdless lasing and large direct modulation bandwidths. In this report, I present …
The Relativistic Harmonic Oscillator And The Generalization Of Lewis' Invariant, Daniel Reinhart
The Relativistic Harmonic Oscillator And The Generalization Of Lewis' Invariant, Daniel Reinhart
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In this thesis, we determine an asymptotic solution for the one dimensional relativistic harmonic oscillator using multiple scale analysis and relate the resulting invariant to Lewis' invariant. We then generalize the equations leading to Lewis' invariant so they are relativistically correct. Next we attempt to find an asymptotic solution for the general equations by making simplifying assumptions on the parameter characterizing the adiabatic nature of the system. The first term in the series for Lewis' invariant corresponds to the adiabatic invariant for systems whose frequency varies slowly. For the relativistic case we find a new conserved quantity and seek to …
Catalytic Properties Of Defect-Laden 2d Material From First-Principles, Tao Jiang
Catalytic Properties Of Defect-Laden 2d Material From First-Principles, Tao Jiang
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Two dimensional (2D) materials offer excellent opportunities for application as catalysts for energy needs. Their catalytic activity depends on the nature of defects, their geometry and their electronic structure. It thus important that the characteristics of defect-laden 2D materials be understood at the microscopic level. My dissertation focuses on theoretical and computational studies of several novel nanoscale materials using state-of-the-art techniques based on density functional theory (DFT) with the objective of understanding the microscopic factors that control material functionality. My work has helped establish defect-laden hexagonal boron nitride (dh-BN) as a promising metal-free catalyst for CO2 hydrogenation. Firstly, I showed …
Hybrid Integration Of Second- And Third-Order Highly Nonlinear Waveguides On Silicon Substrates, Guillermo Fernando Camacho Gonzalez
Hybrid Integration Of Second- And Third-Order Highly Nonlinear Waveguides On Silicon Substrates, Guillermo Fernando Camacho Gonzalez
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In order to extend the capabilities and applications of silicon photonics, other materials and compatible technologies have been developed and integrated on silicon substrates. A particular class of integrable materials are those with high second- and third-order nonlinear optical properties. This work presents contributions made to nonlinear integrated photonics on silicon substrates, including chalcogenide waveguides for over an octave supercontinuum generation, and rib-loaded thin-film lithium niobate waveguides for highly efficient second-harmonic generation. Through the pursuit of hybrid integration of the two types of waveguides for applications such as on-chip self-referenced optical frequency combs, we have experimentally demonstrated fabrication integrability of …
Third-Order Optical Nonlinearities For Integrated Microwave Photonics Applications, Marcin Malinowski
Third-Order Optical Nonlinearities For Integrated Microwave Photonics Applications, Marcin Malinowski
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The field of integrated photonics aims at compressing large and environmentally-sensitive optical systems to micron-sized circuits that can be mass-produced through existing semiconductor fabrication facilities. The integration of optical components on single chips is pivotal to the realization of miniature systems with high degree of complexity. Such novel photonic chips find abundant applications in optical communication, spectroscopy and signal processing. This work concentrates on harnessing nonlinear phenomena to this avail. The first part of this dissertation discusses, both from component and system level, the development of a frequency comb source with a semiconductor mode-locked laser at its heart. New nonlinear …
Non-Hermitian And Space-Time Mode Management, Nicholas Nye
Non-Hermitian And Space-Time Mode Management, Nicholas Nye
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
In the last few years, optics has witnessed the emergence of two fields namely metasurfaces and parity-time (PT) symmetry. Optical metasurfaces are engineered structures that provide unique responses to electromagnetic waves, absent in natural materials. On the other hand, PT symmetry has emerged from quantum mechanics, when a new class of non-Hermitian Hamiltonian quantum systems was shown to have real eigenvalues. In this work, we demonstrate how PT-symmetric diffractive structures are capable of eliminating diffraction orders in specific directions, while maintaining/enhancing the remaining orders. In the second part of this work, we emphasize on supersymmetry (SUSY) and its applications in …
Development Of Nonlocal Green-Kubo Formalism With Applications To Coupled Heat And Mass Transport, Kevin Fernando
Development Of Nonlocal Green-Kubo Formalism With Applications To Coupled Heat And Mass Transport, Kevin Fernando
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Nonlocal equations for coupled heat and mass transport are developed within the Green-Kubo formalism. Nonlocal thermal transport in Lennard-Jones solids is computed to establish the existence of semi-ballistic transport. Deviations from the diffusive theory are shown by comparing the Fourier transform of the response function from the nonlocal theory to that of the diffusive one. It is shown that the deviations from the local theory correspond to acoustic phonons, whose frequency dependence gives rise to the observed deviations from the local theory.
Grating Coupler For Surface Waves Based On Electrical Displacement Currents, Jonathan R. Brescia
Grating Coupler For Surface Waves Based On Electrical Displacement Currents, Jonathan R. Brescia
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Bound electromagnetic surface waves can be excited by free-space waves on a corrugated conduction surface. These electromagnetic surface waves, called surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), are coupled to a plasma of free charges, which travel together with the wave. We investigated the effect of separating metal corrugations from the smooth metal ground plane with a thin dielectric layer and show that SPPs can be excited via displacement currents. However, the SPP excitation resonances broaden and disappear as the dielectric thickness approaches 1% of the wavelength.
Computational Imaging Systems For High-Speed, Adaptive Sensing Applications, Yangyang Sun
Computational Imaging Systems For High-Speed, Adaptive Sensing Applications, Yangyang Sun
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Driven by the advances in signal processing and ubiquitous availability of high-speed low-cost computing resources over the past decade, computational imaging has seen the growing interest. Improvements on spatial, temporal, and spectral resolutions have been made with novel designs of imaging systems and optimization methods. However, there are two limitations in computational imaging. 1), Computational imaging requires full knowledge and representation of the imaging system called the forward model to reconstruct the object of interest. This limits the applications in the systems with a parameterized unknown forward model such as range imaging systems. 2), the regularization in the optimization process …
Sub-Terahertz Spin Pumping From An Insulating Antiferromagnet, Priyanka Vaidya
Sub-Terahertz Spin Pumping From An Insulating Antiferromagnet, Priyanka Vaidya
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The combination of the spin transfer torque and spin Hall effects, or their reciprocal dynamical spin pumping and inverse spin Hall effects, respectively, enable reading and controlling the magnetization state in spintronics devices which are at the verge of mass commercialization as the next generation of energy-efficient and fast magnetic random-access memory applications with the use of ferromagnetic elements, e.g., the spin valve. However, these effects have remained elusive in antiferromagnetic-based devices up to date, despite the fascinating advantages offered by the absence of stray fields (zero net magnetization), Terahertz spin dynamics, and the widespread availability of metallic, insulating and …
Room Temperature Vox Air-Bridge Bolometer Integrated With Metal-Insulator-Metal Resonant Absorbers, Seth Calhoun
Room Temperature Vox Air-Bridge Bolometer Integrated With Metal-Insulator-Metal Resonant Absorbers, Seth Calhoun
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Spectrally-selective un-cooled micro-bolometers have many military and industrial applications for infrared sensing and imaging, e.g. target acquisition and chemical analysis. In this work, a micro-bolometer was fabricated with integrated wavelength-selective absorber based on subwavelength metal-insulator-metal (MIM) resonators. The fabricated air-bridge structure used a vanadium oxide thin film as the bolometric element. A novel aqueous deposition method of depositing vanadium oxide was investigated and compared to traditional sputtered vanadium oxide to determine achievable temperature coefficient of resistance. The MIM absorber itself was investigated as a function of the dielectric used, and the strong dependence of the resonance spectrum on dispersion was …
Design And Fabrication Of Scalable Multifunctional Multimaterial Fibers And Textiles, Felix Tan
Design And Fabrication Of Scalable Multifunctional Multimaterial Fibers And Textiles, Felix Tan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Multimaterial fibers eschew the traditional mono-material structures typical of traditional optical fibers for novel internal architectures that combine disparate materials with distinct optical, mechanical, and electronic properties, thereby enabling novel optoelectronic functionalities delivered in the form factor of an extended fiber. This new class of fibers developed over the past two decades is attracting interest from researchers in such different fields as optics, textiles, and biomedicine. The juxtaposition of multiple materials integrated at micro- and nanoscales in complex geometries while ensuring intimate smooth interfaces extending continuously for kilometers facilitates unique applications such as non-invasive laser surgery, self-monitoring fibers, e-textiles, and …
Stable, Highly Luminescent Perovskite-Polymer Composites For Photonics Applications, Juan He
Stable, Highly Luminescent Perovskite-Polymer Composites For Photonics Applications, Juan He
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Metal halide perovskites (simplified as perovskites as below), particularly those in nanocrystal forms, have recently emerged as highly efficient, bandgap tunable photonics materials that can be easily solution processed at low cost for display, lighting or other energy conversion applications. However, the quick degradation of perovskite nanocrystals under external stresses or upon colloidal aggregations has been a major challenge for most applications where high reliability is normally required. In this thesis, we have explored a polymer swelling-deswelling microencapsulation (SDM) process that enables the dispersion, in-situ crystallization and subsequent surface passivation of perovskite nanocrystals in polymer matrices, and leads to ultrastable …
Mode Coupling In Space-Division Multiplexed Systems, Huiyuan Liu
Mode Coupling In Space-Division Multiplexed Systems, Huiyuan Liu
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Even though fiber-optic communication systems have been engineered to nearly approach the Shannon capacity limit, they still cannot meet the exponentially-growing bandwidth demand of the Internet. Space-division multiplexing (SDM) has attracted considerable attention in recent years due to its potential to address this capacity crunch. In SDM, the transmission channels support more than one spatial mode, each of which can provide the same capacity as a single-mode fiber. To make SDM practical, crosstalk among modes must be effectively managed. This dissertation presents three techniques for crosstalk management for SDM. In some cases such as intra-datacenter interconnects, even though mode crosstalk …
Nanoplasmonics In Two-Dimensional Dirac And Three-Dimensional Metallic Nanostructure Systems, Alireza Safaei
Nanoplasmonics In Two-Dimensional Dirac And Three-Dimensional Metallic Nanostructure Systems, Alireza Safaei
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Surface plasmons are collective oscillation of electrons which are coupled to the incident electric field. Excitation of surface plasmon is a route to engineer the behavior of light in nanometer length scale and amplifying the light-matter interaction. This interaction is an outcome of near-field enhancement close to the metal surface which leads to plasmon damping through radiative decay to outgoing photons and nonradiative decay inside and on the surface of the material to create an electron-hole pair via interband or intraband Landau damping. Plasmonics in Dirac systems such as graphene show novel features due to massless electrons and holes around …
Novel Solid State Lasers Based On Volume Bragg Gratings, Evan Hale
Novel Solid State Lasers Based On Volume Bragg Gratings, Evan Hale
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Since their invention in 1960, lasers have revolutionized modern technology, and tremendous amounts of innovation and development has gone into advancing their properties and efficiencies. This dissertation reports on further innovations by presenting novel solid state laser systems based on the volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) and the newly developed holographic phase mask (HPMs) for brightness enhancement, dual wavelength operation, and mode conversion. First, a new optical element was created by pairing the HPM with two surface gratings creating an achromatic holographic phase mask. This new optical device successfully performed transverse mode conversion of multiple narrow line laser sources operating from …
Cryogenic Performance Projections For Ultra-Small Oxide-Free Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers, Mina Bayat
Cryogenic Performance Projections For Ultra-Small Oxide-Free Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Lasers, Mina Bayat
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Small-sized vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) may offer very low power consumption along with high reliability for cryogenic data transfer. Cryogenic data transfer has application in supercomputers and superconducting for efficient computing and also focal plane array cameras operating at 77 K, and at the lower temperature of 4 K for data extraction from superconducting circuits. A theoretical analysis is presented for 77 K and 4 K operation based on small cavity, oxide-free VCSEL sizes of 2 to 6 µm, that have been shown to operate efficiently at room temperature. Temperature dependent operation for optimally-designed VCSELs are studied by calculating the …
Artificial Magnetism And Topological Phenomena In Optics, Midya Parto
Artificial Magnetism And Topological Phenomena In Optics, Midya Parto
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Recent years have witnessed intense research activities to effectively control the flow of photons using various classes of optical structures such as photonic crystals and metamaterials. In this regard, optics has benefited from concepts in condensed matter and solid-state physics, where similar problems concerning electronic wavefunctions arise. An important example of such correspondence is associated with the photon dynamics under the effect of an artificial magnetic field. This is especially important since photons, as neutral bosons, do not inherently interact with magnetic fields. One way to mitigate this issue is to exploit magneto-optical materials. However, as is well known, using …
High-Dynamic-Range Foveated Near-Eye Display System, Guanjun Tan
High-Dynamic-Range Foveated Near-Eye Display System, Guanjun Tan
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Wearable near-eye display has found widespread applications in education, gaming, entertainment, engineering, military training, and healthcare, just to name a few. However, the visual experience provided by current near-eye displays still falls short to what we can perceive in the real world. Three major challenges remain to be overcome: 1) limited dynamic range in display brightness and contrast, 2) inadequate angular resolution, and 3) vergence-accommodation conflict (VAC) issue. This dissertation is devoted to addressing these three critical issues from both display panel development and optical system design viewpoints. A high-dynamic-range (HDR) display requires both high peak brightness and excellent dark …
Computational Imaging With Limited Photon Budget, Zheyuan Zhu
Computational Imaging With Limited Photon Budget, Zheyuan Zhu
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The capability of retrieving the image/signal of interest from extremely low photon flux is attractive in scientific, industrial, and medical imaging applications. Conventional imaging modalities and reconstruction algorithms rely on hundreds to thousands of photons per pixel (or per measurement) to ensure enough signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio for extracting the image/signal of interest. Unfortunately, the potential of radiation or photon damage prohibits high SNR measurements in dose-sensitive diagnosis scenarios. In addition, imaging systems utilizing inherently weak signals as contrast mechanism, such as X-ray scattering-based tomography, or attosecond pulse retrieval from the streaking trace, entail prolonged integration time to acquire hundreds of …