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Full-Text Articles in Physics

Advanced Iii-V / Si Nano-Scale Transistors And Contacts: Modeling And Analysis, Seung Hyun Park Oct 2014

Advanced Iii-V / Si Nano-Scale Transistors And Contacts: Modeling And Analysis, Seung Hyun Park

Open Access Dissertations

The exponential miniaturization of Si CMOS technology has been a key to the electronics revolution. However, the continuous downscaling of the gate length becomes the biggest challenge to maintain higher speed, lower power, and better electrostatic integrity for each following generation. Hence, novel devices and better channel materials than Si are considered to improve the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) device performance. III-V compound semiconductors and multi-gate structures are being considered as promising candidates in the next CMOS technology. III-V and Si nano-scale transistors in different architectures are investigated (1) to compare the performance between InGaAs of III-V compound semiconductors and …


Structural Characterization Of Multimetallic Nanoparticles, Vineetha Mukundan Oct 2014

Structural Characterization Of Multimetallic Nanoparticles, Vineetha Mukundan

Open Access Dissertations

Bimetallic and trimetallic alloy nanoparticles have enhanced catalytic activities due to their unique structural properties. Using in situ time-resolved synchrotron based x-ray diffraction, we investigated the structural properties of nanoscale catalysts undergoing various heat treatments. Thermal treatment brings about changes in particle size, morphology, dispersion of metals on support, alloying, surface electronic properties, etc. First, the mechanisms of coalescence and grain growth in PtNiCo nanoparticles supported on planar silica on silicon were examined in detail in the temperature range 400-900°C. The sintering process in PtNiCo nanoparticles was found to be accompanied by lattice contraction and L10chemical ordering. …


Tunable Impedance Matching Network Fundamental Limits And Pracitical Considerations, Wesley N. Allen Oct 2014

Tunable Impedance Matching Network Fundamental Limits And Pracitical Considerations, Wesley N. Allen

Open Access Dissertations

As wireless devices continue to increase in utility while decreasing in dimension, design of the RF front-end becomes more complex. It is common for a single handheld device to operate on a plethora of frequency bands, utilize multiple antennae, and be subjected to a variety of environments. One complexity in particular which arises from these factors is that of impedance mismatch. Recently, tunable impedance matching networks have begun to be implemented to address this problem. ^ This dissertation presents the first in-depth study on the frequency tuning range of tunable impedance matching networks. Both the fundamental limitations of ideal networks …


Particle Swarms In Confining Geometries, Eric Robert Boomsma Oct 2014

Particle Swarms In Confining Geometries, Eric Robert Boomsma

Open Access Dissertations

The transport of micro- and nano-particles in subsurface fluid deposits is an area of increasing interest due to the rising use of these particles for consumer and industrial purposes. Subsurface particle transport is complicated by the presence of fractures and fracture networks which govern the paths that particles will be able to take. In this thesis, subsurface particle transport will be investigated using particle swarms; collections of hydro-dynamically interacting particles which exhibit group behavior. The effects of fluid viscosity, particle properties, fracture geometry, and fracture aperture on swarm behavior were experimentally investigated. ^ Swarm parameters were examined in time with …


Effects Of Energetic Irradiation On Materials And Devices Based On Graphene And Topological Insulators, Isaac Childres Oct 2014

Effects Of Energetic Irradiation On Materials And Devices Based On Graphene And Topological Insulators, Isaac Childres

Open Access Dissertations

This report focuses on the optical and electronic properties of graphene and topological insulators and how these Dirac fermion systems interact with energetic irradiation. We first present data exploring the effects of electron-beam and oxygen plasma induced disorder on the electronic properties and Raman spectra of graphene. These initial investigations were important for relating Raman peak intensities and weak localization features to each other and to an average disorder length in graphene, LD. ^ We then integrate gate-effect measurements into the Raman spectroscopy study to fully explore the relationships between carrier density, disorder and Raman spectrum signatures. We …


Transport Studies Of Reentrant Integer Quantum Hall States Forming In The Two-Dimensional Electron Gas, Nianpei Deng Oct 2014

Transport Studies Of Reentrant Integer Quantum Hall States Forming In The Two-Dimensional Electron Gas, Nianpei Deng

Open Access Dissertations

The two dimensional electron gas subjected to a magnetic field has been a model system in contemporary condensed matter physics which generated many beautiful experiments as well as novel fundamental concepts. These novel concepts are of broad interests and have benefited other fields of research. For example, the observations of conventional odd-denominator fractional quantum Hall states have enriched many-body physics with important concepts such as fractional statistics and composite fermions. The subsequent discovery of the enigmatic even-denominator ν=5/2 fractional quantum Hall state has led to more interesting concepts such as non-Abelian statistics and pairing of composite fermions which can be …


Efficient And Coherent Frequency Conversions And Nonlinear Interference In Optical Parametric And Atomic Raman Processes, Yu Ding Oct 2014

Efficient And Coherent Frequency Conversions And Nonlinear Interference In Optical Parametric And Atomic Raman Processes, Yu Ding

Open Access Dissertations

By implementing a parametric down-conversion process with a strong signal field injection, we demonstrate that frequency down-conversion from pump photons to idler photons can be a coherent process. Contrary to a common misconception, we show that the process can be free of quantum noise. With an interference experiment, we demonstrate that coherence is preserved in the conversion process. This technique could lead to a high-fidelity quantum state transfer from a high-frequency photon to a low-frequency photon and connect a missing link in quantum networks. ^ Coherent and efficient nonlinear interaction and frequency conversion are of great interest in many areas …


Dynamic Control Of Plasmonic Resonances With Graphene Based Nanostructures, Naresh Kumar Emani Oct 2014

Dynamic Control Of Plasmonic Resonances With Graphene Based Nanostructures, Naresh Kumar Emani

Open Access Dissertations

Light incident on a metallic structure excites collective oscillations of electrons termed as plasmons. These plasmons are useful in control and manipulation of information in nanoscale dimensions and at high operating frequencies. Hence, the field of plasmonics opens up the possibility of developing nanoscale optoelectronic circuitry for computing and sensing applications. One of the challenges in this effort is the lack of tunable plasmonic resonance. Currently, the resonant wavelength of plasmonic structure is fixed by the material and structural parameters. Post-fabrication dynamic control of a plasmonic resonance is rather limited.^ In this thesis we explore the combination of optoelectrical properties …


Quantum Mechanics In Complex Systems, Ross Douglas Hoehn Oct 2014

Quantum Mechanics In Complex Systems, Ross Douglas Hoehn

Open Access Dissertations

This document should be considered in its separation; there are three distinct topics contained within and three distinct chapters within the body of works. In a similar fashion, this abstract should be considered in three parts. Firstly, we explored the existence of multiply-charged atomic ions by having developed a new set of dimensional scaling equations as well as a series of relativistic augmentations to the standard dimensional scaling procedure and to the self-consistent field calculations. Secondly, we propose a novel method of predicting drug efficacy in hopes to facilitate the discovery of new small molecule therapeutics by modeling the agonist-protein …


Observation Of Upsilon Suppression, Search For Long-Lived Particles, And Observation Of B0s → Micro + Micro-- At The Lhc With The Cms Experiment, Zhen Hu Oct 2014

Observation Of Upsilon Suppression, Search For Long-Lived Particles, And Observation Of B0s → Micro + Micro-- At The Lhc With The Cms Experiment, Zhen Hu

Open Access Dissertations

The LHC centre-of-mass energy allows abundant ϒ production in lead-lead (PbPb) collisions. A detailed measurement of the bottomonium production will help to characterize the dense matter produced in heavy-ion collisions. The full spectroscopy of quarkonium states has been proposed as a possible thermometer for the QGP. The measurement reported in Chapter 3 is performed with data recorded by CMS during the first PbPb run at 2010 and the proton-proton (pp) run at 2011, both at sqrt sNN = 2.76 TeV. The integrated luminosity corresponds to 7.28/µb for PbPb and 225/nb for ppcollisions. Using muons of transverse momentum ( …


Beam-Induced Radiation Heating On The Superconducting Undulator At The Advanced Photon Source, Laura Elizabeth Boon Oct 2014

Beam-Induced Radiation Heating On The Superconducting Undulator At The Advanced Photon Source, Laura Elizabeth Boon

Open Access Dissertations

In January 2013 the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a 7 GeV synchrotron X-ray source, commissioned a Superconducting Undulator (SCU). The superconducting magnet is thermally isolated from the beam vacuum chamber, which absorbs the beam-induced heating. Previous beam induced heat load studies at other laboratories had not included a robust calculation of radiation heating from the upstream dipole magnet. The mitigation of the radiation heating mechanism, and production of photoelectrons to seed an electron cloud was studied for this thesis. ^ An analytical model was developed to predict the radiation heat load on the SCU chamber. This model was benchmarked with …


Applications Of Femtosecond Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering In Combustion, Claresta Nicole Dennis Oct 2014

Applications Of Femtosecond Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering In Combustion, Claresta Nicole Dennis

Open Access Dissertations

The dissertation deals with the further development of chirped-probe-pulse femtosecond coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CPP fs-CARS) for applications of gas phase thermometry and extension to methane concentration measurements. The main effort has been to assess the usefulness and robustness of the technique in turbulent combustors of practical interest. A primary aim has been to evaluate the use of CPP fs-CARS for vibrational N2 thermometry in a highly turbulent environment. It has been suggested that due to the laser beam temporal overlap required for fs-CARS signal generation, the technique would be unsuccessful due to beam propagation retardation effects from density …


Theory Of Density Functionals, Martin A. Mosquera-Tabares Oct 2014

Theory Of Density Functionals, Martin A. Mosquera-Tabares

Open Access Dissertations

Density functional theory is an alternative quantum mechanical theory that offers simple ways of performing calculations of the electronic properties of matter. Many different methods derive from density functional theory. The most appealing for its simplicity and rigor is the theory of Kohn and Sham. In this thesis I propose new methods in density-functional theory that are helpful to address some important problems in the application of the local-density approximation within Kohn-Sham DFT to the analysis of ground-states and dynamical properties of electronic systems.


Evaluation Of Yttrium-90 Positron Emission Tomography Dosimetry, Katherine N. Tapp Oct 2014

Evaluation Of Yttrium-90 Positron Emission Tomography Dosimetry, Katherine N. Tapp

Open Access Dissertations

Purpose: Radioembolization is a novel treatment which utilizes the liver's unique dual system blood supply to trap yttrium-90 (90Y) microspheres in microvasculature near liver tumors. Radioembolization dose planning and dosimetry are based on crude, inaccurate assumptions due to the lack of knowledge of patient specific 90Y microsphere distribution. In recent years, the very small 3.1867e-5 internal pair production decay branch of 90Y has been shown to allow for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging following radioembolization. This work explores the accuracy and limitation of 90Y PET imaging due to the extremely low signal to noise (SNR) …


Optical Spectroscopy And Langmuir Probe Diagnostics Of Microwave Plasma In Synthesis Of Graphene-Based Nanomaterials, Alfredo D. Tuesta Oct 2014

Optical Spectroscopy And Langmuir Probe Diagnostics Of Microwave Plasma In Synthesis Of Graphene-Based Nanomaterials, Alfredo D. Tuesta

Open Access Dissertations

Along with the revolutionary discovery and development of carbon nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes and graphitic sheets, has arrived the potential for their application in the fields of medicine, bioscience and engineering due to their exceptional structural, thermal and electrical properties. As roll-to-roll plasma deposition systems begin to provide means for large scale production of these nanodevices, a detailed understanding of the environment responsible for their synthesis is imperative in order to more accurately design and control the growth of carbon nanodevices. To date, the understanding of the chemistry and kinetics that govern the synthesis of carbon nanodevices is only …


Hydrogen Loading System Development And Evaluation Of Tritiated Substrates To Optimize Performance In Tritium Based Betavoltaics, Thomas E. Adams Oct 2014

Hydrogen Loading System Development And Evaluation Of Tritiated Substrates To Optimize Performance In Tritium Based Betavoltaics, Thomas E. Adams

Open Access Dissertations

State-of-the-art hydrogen loading system onto thin metallic films based on differential pressure in calibrated chambers has been developed for conditions pressures and temperatures up to 69 bar and 500°C, respectively. Experiments on hydrogen loading on to palladium films of thickness 50 and 250 nm were conducted at pressure ranging from 0.2 bar to 10 bar at temperature 310°C. For first time film hydrogen loading was carried out at 1 bar and at room temperature which temperature. Beta flux exiting surface of metal tritide films has been modeled with MC-SET (Monte Carlo Simulation of Electron Trajectories in solids). Surface beta flux …


Energy Efficient Hybrid Computing Systems Using Spin Devices, Mrigank Sharad Jul 2014

Energy Efficient Hybrid Computing Systems Using Spin Devices, Mrigank Sharad

Open Access Dissertations

Emerging spin-devices like magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ's), spin-valves and domain wall magnets (DWM) have opened new avenues for spin-based logic design. This work explored potential computing applications which can exploit such devices for higher energy-efficiency and performance. The proposed applications involve hybrid design schemes, where charge-based devices supplement the spin-devices, to gain large benefits at the system level. As an example, lateral spin valves (LSV) involve switching of nanomagnets using spin-polarized current injection through a metallic channel such as Cu. Such spin-torque based devices possess several interesting properties that can be exploited for ultra-low power computation. Analog characteristic of spin …