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2010

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Articles 3991 - 4020 of 5375

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Long Cavity Quantum Dot Laser Diode And Monolithic Passively Mode-Locked Operation, K Shavitranuruk Jan 2010

Long Cavity Quantum Dot Laser Diode And Monolithic Passively Mode-Locked Operation, K Shavitranuruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advantage of the single QD active layer is its potential for very low threshold current density, which in turn can produce low internal optical loss. The low threshold current density and low internal loss thus enable a significant increase in laser diode cavity length. Because of the importance of the threshold current density in heatsinking, future technology of broad-area monolithic laser diodes can be implemented. The dissertation describes the development and the unique characteristics of single QD active layer laser with long cavity. The data are presented on single layer QD laser diodes that reach threshold current densities values of …


On The Applications Of Deterministic Chaos For Encrypting Data On The Cloud, Jonathan Blackledge, N. Ptitsyn Jan 2010

On The Applications Of Deterministic Chaos For Encrypting Data On The Cloud, Jonathan Blackledge, N. Ptitsyn

Conference papers

Cloud computing is expected to grow considerably in the future because it has so many advantages with regard to sale and cost, change management, next generation architectures, choice and agility. However, one of the principal concerns for users of the Cloud is lack of control and above all, data security. This paper considers an approach to encrypting information before it is ‘place’ on the Cloud where each user has access to their own encryption algorithm, an algorithm that is based on a set of Iterative Function Systems that outputs a chaotic number stream, designed to produce a cryptographically secure cipher. …


Quantum Approach To Electronic Noise Calculations In The Presence Of Electron-Phonon Interactions, Hong-Hyun Park, Gerhard Klimeck Jan 2010

Quantum Approach To Electronic Noise Calculations In The Presence Of Electron-Phonon Interactions, Hong-Hyun Park, Gerhard Klimeck

Birck and NCN Publications

A quantum-mechanical approach to the calculation of electronic noise for nanoscale devices is presented. This method is based on the nonequilibrium Green’s-function formalism with electron-phonon scattering mechanisms and takes the effects of the Pauli exclusion principle and the long-range Coulomb interactions into account. As examples the drain current noise characteristics of silicon nanowire transistors at room temperature are simulated. The drain current noise in the saturation regime is primarily shot-noise dominant but is suppressed for higher gate biases due to the electron-electron correlation in the channel region. The role of electron-phonon interactions on noise, the transition from thermal to shot …


Privometer: Privacy Protection In Social Networks, Nilothpal Talukder, Mourad Ouzzani, Ahmed Elmagarmid, Hazem Elmeleegy Jan 2010

Privometer: Privacy Protection In Social Networks, Nilothpal Talukder, Mourad Ouzzani, Ahmed Elmagarmid, Hazem Elmeleegy

Cyber Center Publications

The increasing popularity of social networks, such as Facebook and Orkut, has raised several privacy concerns. Traditional ways of safeguarding privacy of personal information by hiding sensitive attributes are no longer adequate. Research shows that probabilistic classification techniques can effectively infer such private information. The disclosed sensitive information of friends, group affiliations and even participation in activities, such as tagging and commenting, are considered background knowledge in this process. In this paper, we present a privacy protection tool, called Privometer, that measures the amount of sensitive information leakage in a user profile and suggests selfsanitization actions to regulate the amount …


A Database Server For Next-Generation Scientific Data Management, Mohamed Eltabakh, Walid G. Aref, Ahmed Elmagarmid Jan 2010

A Database Server For Next-Generation Scientific Data Management, Mohamed Eltabakh, Walid G. Aref, Ahmed Elmagarmid

Cyber Center Publications

The growth of scientific information and the increasing automation of data collection have made databases integral to many scientific disciplines including life sciences, physics, meteorology, earth and atmospheric sciences, and chemistry. These sciences pose new data management challenges to current database system technologies. This dissertation addresses the following three challenges: (1) Annotation Management: Annotations and provenance information are important metadata that go hand-in-hand with scientific data. Annotating scientific data represents a vital mechanism for scientists to share knowledge and build an interactive and collaborative environment. A major challenge is: How to manage large volumes of annotations, especially at various granularities, …


Accurate Force Spectroscopy In Tapping Mode Atomic Force Microscopy In Liquids, Xin Xu, John Melcher, Arvind Raman Jan 2010

Accurate Force Spectroscopy In Tapping Mode Atomic Force Microscopy In Liquids, Xin Xu, John Melcher, Arvind Raman

Birck and NCN Publications

Existing force spectroscopy methods in tapping mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) such as higher harmonic inversion [M. Stark, R. W. Stark, W. M. Heckl, and R. Guckenberger, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 99, 8473 (2002)] or scanning probe acceleration microscopy [J. Legleiter, M. Park, B. Cusick, and T. Kowalewski, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 103, 4813 (2006)] or integral relations [M. Lee and W. Jhe, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 036104 (2006); S. Hu and A. Raman, Nanotechnology 19, 375704 (2008); H. Holscher, Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 123109 (2006); A. J. Katan, Nanotechnology 20, 165703 (2009)] require …


Molecular Modulation Of Schottky Barrier Height In Metal-Molecule-Silicon Diodes: Capacitance And Simulation Results, Adina Scott, Chad Risko, Nicholas Valley, Mark A. Ratner, David B. Janes Jan 2010

Molecular Modulation Of Schottky Barrier Height In Metal-Molecule-Silicon Diodes: Capacitance And Simulation Results, Adina Scott, Chad Risko, Nicholas Valley, Mark A. Ratner, David B. Janes

Birck and NCN Publications

There is considerable current interest in using molecular materials to influence the surface potential of semiconductor devices for nanoelectronic and sensing applications. We present experimental capacitance-voltage results showing that systematic Schottky barrier height modulation can be achieved using dipolar molecular layers in gold-molecule-silicon devices. A computational methodology that combines quantum chemistry and traditional electrostatic calculations is used to explore various physical effects that can influence barrier heights in such systems. Nonidealities such as silicon surface states can influence both the potential profile within the device and the validity of the extracted barrier height. Our devices exhibit low surface state densities, …


On Landauer Versus Boltzmann And Full Band Versus Effective Mass Evaluation Of Thermoelectric Transport Coefficients, Changwook Jeong, Raseong Kim, Mathieu Luisier, Supriyo Datta, Mark S. Lundstrom Jan 2010

On Landauer Versus Boltzmann And Full Band Versus Effective Mass Evaluation Of Thermoelectric Transport Coefficients, Changwook Jeong, Raseong Kim, Mathieu Luisier, Supriyo Datta, Mark S. Lundstrom

Birck and NCN Publications

Using a full band description of electronic bandstructure, the Landauer approach to diffusive transport is mathematically related to the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation, and expressions for the thermoelectric parameters in both formalisms are presented. Quantum mechanical and semiclassical techniques to obtain from a full description of the bandstructure, E(k), the density of modes in the Landauer approach or the transport distribution in the Boltzmann solution are compared and thermoelectric transport coefficients are evaluated. Several example calculations for representative bulk materials are presented and the full band results are related to the more common effective mass formalism. Finally, given …


A Visual Analytics Approach To Understanding Spatiotemporal Hotspots, Ross Maciejewski, Stephen Rudolph, Ryan Hafen, Ahmad Abusalah, Mohamed Yakout, Mourad Ouzzani, William S. Cleveland, Shaun Grannis, David S. Ebert Jan 2010

A Visual Analytics Approach To Understanding Spatiotemporal Hotspots, Ross Maciejewski, Stephen Rudolph, Ryan Hafen, Ahmad Abusalah, Mohamed Yakout, Mourad Ouzzani, William S. Cleveland, Shaun Grannis, David S. Ebert

Cyber Center Publications

As data sources become larger and more complex, the ability to effectively explore and analyze patterns amongst varying sources becomes a critical bottleneck in analytic reasoning. Incoming data contains multiple variables, high signal to noise ratio, and a degree of uncertainty, all of which hinder exploration, hypothesis eneration/exploration, and decision making. To facilitate the exploration of such data, advanced tool sets are needed that allow the user to interact with their data in a visual environment that provides direct analytic capability for finding data aberrations or hotspots. In this paper, we present a suite of tools designed to facilitate the …


Theory Of ‘Selectivity’ Of Label-Free Nanobiosensors – A Geometro-Physical Perspective, Pradeep R. Nair, Muhammad A. Alam Jan 2010

Theory Of ‘Selectivity’ Of Label-Free Nanobiosensors – A Geometro-Physical Perspective, Pradeep R. Nair, Muhammad A. Alam

Birck and NCN Publications

Modern label-free biosensors are generally far more sensitive and require orders of magnitude less incubation time compared to their classical counterparts. However, a more important characteristic regarding the viability of this technology for applications in Genomics/Proteomics is defined by the ‘Selectivity’, i.e., the ability to concurrently and uniquely detect multiple target biomolecules in the presence of interfering species. Currently, there is no theory of Selectivity that allows optimization of competing factors and there are few experiments to probe this problem systematically. In this article, we use the elementary considerations of surface exclusion, diffusion limited transport, and void distribution function to …


Spatio-Temporal Access Methods: Part 2 (2003 - 2010), Long-Van Nguyen-Dinh, Walid G. Aref, Mohamed Mokbel Jan 2010

Spatio-Temporal Access Methods: Part 2 (2003 - 2010), Long-Van Nguyen-Dinh, Walid G. Aref, Mohamed Mokbel

Cyber Center Publications

In spatio-temporal applications, moving objects detect their locations via location-aware devices and update their locations continuously to the server. With the ubiquity and massive numbers of moving objects, many spatio-temporal access methods are developed to process user queries efficiently. Spatio- temporal access methods are classified into four categories: (1) Indexing the past data, (2) Indexing the current data, (3) Indexing the future data, and (4) Indexing data at all points of time. This short survey is Part 2 of our previous work [28]. In Part 2, we give an overview and classification of spatio-temporal access methods that are published between …


Reactive Molecular Dynamics: Numerical Methods And Algorithmic Techniques, Hasan Metin Aktulga, Shailaja Pandit, Adri C. T. Van Duin, Ananth Y. Grama Jan 2010

Reactive Molecular Dynamics: Numerical Methods And Algorithmic Techniques, Hasan Metin Aktulga, Shailaja Pandit, Adri C. T. Van Duin, Ananth Y. Grama

PRISM: NNSA Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems

Modeling atomic and molecular systems requires computation-intensive quantum mechanical methods such as, but not limited to, density functional theory (DFT) [11]. These methods have been successful in predicting various properties of chemical systems at atomistic detail. Due to the inherent nonlocality of quantum mechanics, the scalability of these methods ranges from O(N3) to O(N7) depending on the method used and approximations involved. This significantly limits the size of simulated systems to a few thousands of atoms, even on large scale parallel platforms. On the other hand, classical approximations of quantum systems, although computationally (relatively) easy to implement, yield simpler models …


Weighted Matrix Ordering And Parallel Banded Preconditioners For Iterative Linear System Solvers, Murat Manguoglu, Mehmet Koyuturk, Ahmed Sameh, Ananth Y. Grama Jan 2010

Weighted Matrix Ordering And Parallel Banded Preconditioners For Iterative Linear System Solvers, Murat Manguoglu, Mehmet Koyuturk, Ahmed Sameh, Ananth Y. Grama

PRISM: NNSA Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems

The emergence of multicore architectures and highly scalable platforms motivates the development of novel algorithms and techniques that emphasize concurrency and are tolerant of deep memory hierarchies, as opposed to minimizing raw FLOP counts. While direct solvers are reliable, they are often slow and memory-intensive for large problems. Iterative solvers, on the other hand, are more efficient but, in the absence of robust preconditioners, lack reliability. While preconditioners based on incomplete factorizations ( whenever they exist) are effective for many problems, their parallel scalability is generally limited. In this paper, we advocate the use of banded preconditioners instead and introduce …


Real-Time Monitoring Of Contact Behaviour Of Rf Mems Switches With A Very Low Power Cmos Capactive Sensor Interface, Adam Fruehling, Mohammad Abu Khater, Byunghoo Jung, Dimitrios Peroulis Jan 2010

Real-Time Monitoring Of Contact Behaviour Of Rf Mems Switches With A Very Low Power Cmos Capactive Sensor Interface, Adam Fruehling, Mohammad Abu Khater, Byunghoo Jung, Dimitrios Peroulis

PRISM: NNSA Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems

This paper presents the first ultra-low power, fully electronic methodology for real-time monitoring of the dynamic behavior of RF MEMS switches. The measurement is based on a capacitive readout circuit composed of 67 transistors with 105 µm x 105 µm footprint consuming as little as 60 µW. This is achieved by accurately sensing the capacitance change around the contact region at sampling rates from 10 kHz to 5 MHz. Experimental and simulation results show that times of not only the first contact event but also all subsequent contact bounces can be accurately measured with this technique without interfering with the …


A Viscoelastic-Aware Experimentally-Derived Model For Analog Rf Mems Varactors, Hao-Han Hsu, Dimitrios Peroulis Jan 2010

A Viscoelastic-Aware Experimentally-Derived Model For Analog Rf Mems Varactors, Hao-Han Hsu, Dimitrios Peroulis

PRISM: NNSA Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems

In this paper we present, for the ¯rst time, an experimentally-extracted model for the spring con- stant and tuning range of an analog RF-MEMS var- actor that includes viscoelastic e®ects in RF-MEMS devices. By utilizing a bi-state bias condition with one state lasting 60 minutes and the other 1 minute, this model focuses on capturing the true electrome- chanical behavior of the varactor. An experimental setup with very high long-term accuracy is created to measure capacitance of the varactor up to 1,370 hours. The impact of these e®ects and the e®ective- ness of the model are demonstrated on a tunable- …


Unusual Scaling Obsrvations In The Quality Factors Of Cantilevered Carbon Nanotube Resonators, Ajit K. Vallabhaneni, Jeffrey F. Rhoads, Xiulin Ruan, Jayathi Y. Murthy Jan 2010

Unusual Scaling Obsrvations In The Quality Factors Of Cantilevered Carbon Nanotube Resonators, Ajit K. Vallabhaneni, Jeffrey F. Rhoads, Xiulin Ruan, Jayathi Y. Murthy

PRISM: NNSA Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems

This work examines the quality factors (Q factors) of resonance associated with the axial and transverse vibrations of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) resonators through the use of molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. Specifically, the work investigates the effect of device length, diameter, and chirality, as well as temperature, on the resonant frequency and quality factor of these devices, and benchmarks the results of MD simulation against classical theories of energy dissipation. Of note are the facts that the quality factors associated with transverse vibration decrease with increasing device diameter and are largely insensitive to chirality. Additionally, quality factors increase with increasing …


Higate (High Grade Anti-Tamper Equipment) Prototype And Application To E-Discovery, Yui Sakurai, Yuki Ashino, Tetsutaro Uehara, Hiroshi Yoshiura, Ryoichi Sasaki Jan 2010

Higate (High Grade Anti-Tamper Equipment) Prototype And Application To E-Discovery, Yui Sakurai, Yuki Ashino, Tetsutaro Uehara, Hiroshi Yoshiura, Ryoichi Sasaki

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

These days, most data is digitized and processed in various ways by computers. In the past, computer owners were free to process data as desired and to observe the inputted data as well as the interim results. However, the unrestricted processing of data and accessing of interim results even by computer users is associated with an increasing number of adverse events. These adverse events often occur when sensitive data such as personal or confidential business information must be handled by two or more parties, such as in the case of e-Discovery, used in legal proceedings, or epidemiologic studies. To solve …


Local Versus Global Search In Channel Graphs, A.H. Hunter, Nicholas Pippenger Jan 2010

Local Versus Global Search In Channel Graphs, A.H. Hunter, Nicholas Pippenger

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Previous studies of search in channel graphs has assumed that the search is global; that is, that the status of any link can be probed by the search algorithm at any time. We consider for the first time local search, for which only links to which an idle path from the source has already been established may be probed. We show that some well known channel graphs may require exponentially more probes, on the average, when search must be local than when it may be global.


A Doctoral Thesis Examining Change In A Hei In Ireland: Changing Universities And The Response Of Academics To Change In The Dublin Institute Of Technology, Kevin Kelly Jan 2010

A Doctoral Thesis Examining Change In A Hei In Ireland: Changing Universities And The Response Of Academics To Change In The Dublin Institute Of Technology, Kevin Kelly

Books/Book chapters

This is doctoral thesis undertaken by an experienced academic in the Engineering Faculty of a Higher Education Institute in Ireland. It examines the demand for universities to change in response to a fast changing external environment. This research explores how stakeholders are responding to the demands for change and how a bureaucratic organisation is attempting to become more responsive and innovative.


Testing Of Interactions Between Coal Ash Leachates And Rock Materials For Mine Backfill Evaluations, Colin R. Ward, David French, Leanne Stephenson, Ken Riley, Zhongsheng Li Jan 2010

Testing Of Interactions Between Coal Ash Leachates And Rock Materials For Mine Backfill Evaluations, Colin R. Ward, David French, Leanne Stephenson, Ken Riley, Zhongsheng Li

Coal Combustion and Gasification Products Journal Archive

A series of laboratory-based leaching tests has been developed to evaluate the chemical interaction between ash, water and different mine-site rock materials, as a basis for assessing the potential environmental impact of using coal ash as backfill in coal mines. Two different test protocols were used: a two-stage serial batch testing program in which leachate from representative ash samples were allowed to interact separately with relevant rock materials under laboratory conditions, and a single-stage mixed batch testing program in which 50:50 mixtures of the same ashes and rock samples were extracted with water following a similar procedure to leaching tests …


Complexity Reduction For Vp6 To H.264 Transcoder Using Motion Vector Reuse, Jay R. Padia Jan 2010

Complexity Reduction For Vp6 To H.264 Transcoder Using Motion Vector Reuse, Jay R. Padia

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

VP6 is a video coding standard developed by On2 Technologies, Inc. It is the preferred codec for Macromedia Flash 8 video. VP6 gained importance with Macromedia Flash emerging as a widely adopted video streaming technology over the internet. H.264 is currently one of the most widely accepted video coding standards in the industry. It enables high quality video at low bitrates. Adobe adopted H.264 for its Flash video in August 2007. Adobe looks at adoption of H.264 as a major step towards enabling high quality video on the web. Hence there is increasing importance of techniques which can convert video …


Implementation And Performance Analysis Of 2-D Order 16 Integer Transforms In H.264/Avc And Avs-Video For High Definition Video Coding, Madhu Peringassery Krishnan Jan 2010

Implementation And Performance Analysis Of 2-D Order 16 Integer Transforms In H.264/Avc And Avs-Video For High Definition Video Coding, Madhu Peringassery Krishnan

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

H.264/AVC and AVS-video are two video coding standards that have a wide range of applications ranging from high-end professional camera and editing systems to low-end mobile applications. They strive to achieve maximum compression efficiency without compromising the quality of video. To this end many coding tools are defined in them. Transform coding is one among them. Transform coding represents the signal/image (that is currently in time/spatial domain) in another domain (transform domain), where most of the energy in signal/image is concentrated in a fewer number of coefficients. Thus the insignificant coefficients can be discarded after transform coding to achieve compression. …


Physics Behind Rfid Smart Card Security In Context Of Privacy, Kirti Chopra Jan 2010

Physics Behind Rfid Smart Card Security In Context Of Privacy, Kirti Chopra

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

In this thesis I prove that existing HF protocol is not secure. Lack of security in turn leads to violation of privacy.The unique ID on the HF RFID smart card can be sniffed by any eavesdropper. Not only eavesdropping, but cloning of the card is another significant problem that poses a privacy threat. An attacker can skim the information on a proximity card and clone it to use for his malicious purposes.RFID smart cards are now widely being used in credit cards,access system, transit system and many more such application. Tampering or malicious usage of data on aforementioned cards raises …


Alternative Cooling Technologies For Telecommunication Data Centers: Air Cooling And Rear Door Heat Exchangers, Venkata Naga Poornima Mynampati Jan 2010

Alternative Cooling Technologies For Telecommunication Data Centers: Air Cooling And Rear Door Heat Exchangers, Venkata Naga Poornima Mynampati

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Telecommunication industry is currently emphasizing to a miniaturization and convergence. The need for smaller, smarter and faster devices is leading drastic increment in power density and accordingly, thermal management of such devices has become a challenge. The heat generated by the devices has to be dissipated in order to ensure proper and efficient functioning of the electronics. Electronics cooling ranges from device level to the room level cooling. Data Center is a facility (room) consisting of servers used for managing and transferring data or information. The thermal management of this facility is challenging due to the huge decrease in floor …


Adaptive Pain Management Decision Support System, Ching-Feng Lin Jan 2010

Adaptive Pain Management Decision Support System, Ching-Feng Lin

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Pain management is an international health issue. The Eugene McDermott Center for Pain Management at the University of Texas Southwestern MedicalCenter at Dallas conducts a two-stage interdisciplinary pain management program that considers a wide variety of treatments. Prior to treatment (stage 1), an evaluation records the patient's pain characteristics, medical history and related health parameters. A treatment regime is then determined. At the midpoint of their program (stage 2), an evaluation is conducted to determine if an adjustment in the treatment should be made. A final evaluation is conducted at the end of the program to assess final outcomes. The …


Position Sensorless Control Of A Magnetically Levitated (Maglev) System, Esteban Ricardo Noboa Jan 2010

Position Sensorless Control Of A Magnetically Levitated (Maglev) System, Esteban Ricardo Noboa

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The main focus of this investigation is the development and implementation of a sensorless position estimation method and hysteresis position controller for a laboratory-based Maglev system. The proposed estimation method and controller are first validated through modeling and simulation. This sensorless scheme makes use of the maglev system's magnetic signature, namely, its inductance and requires only active phase current measurements. These measurements are then used along with the phase voltage equation to estimate position information that is in a one-to-one correspondence with the system's inductance. The theoretical aspects of the sensorless scheme are described. Finite element analysis (FEA) as well …


Corporate Environmental Performance Rating Methodology, Arunapprakasini Sankaranarayanan Jan 2010

Corporate Environmental Performance Rating Methodology, Arunapprakasini Sankaranarayanan

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important to all kinds of stakeholders and companies themselves, not only for cost avoidance due to regulations, laws, cleanup costs, litigations, controversies, etc, but to improve their intrinsic ethical worth as a company for better environmental sustainability. Off late, companies are increasingly investing in environmental initiatives for cost savings and to generate profits as well. However, since no clear definition of greenness exists, companies are finding it difficult to measure environmental performance as an internal and external benchmark and hence a sound performance measurement system with formal guidelines is yet to be in place. What …


Fault Detection And Optimal Treatment Of The Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine Using Field Reconstruction Method, Amir Khoobroo Jan 2010

Fault Detection And Optimal Treatment Of The Permanent Magnet Synchronous Machine Using Field Reconstruction Method, Amir Khoobroo

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Permanent magnet synchronous machines (PMSM) are used extensively in industrial applications due to their relatively high power density, high efficiency, negligible rotor losses, maintenance free operation, and ease of control. Fault tolerance has become a design criterion for adjustable speed motor drives (ASMD) which are used in high impact applications. In simple terms, a fault tolerant ASMD is expected to continue its intended function in the event of a failure compliment to its remaining components. A wide variety of the research has been done on the techniques of fault detection. Most of these researches focus solely on the fault detection …


Development Of Su-8 And Pdms Miniatured Boats And Flotillas, Hao Li Jan 2010

Development Of Su-8 And Pdms Miniatured Boats And Flotillas, Hao Li

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In this work, we developed miniaturized SU-8 and PDMS miniaturized boats and flotillas, and explored their designs, fabrication, actuation, motions and driving mechanisms. Like large-scale boats and flotillas, these miniaturized boat and flotillas can be potentially applied to transport designed targets to desired locations in small fluidic systems. They may also be employed as mixers, rotators and so on. We first develop a SU-8 boat, and studied its design, fabrication, actuation and motions. In three types of tests conducted on water free surfaces of different heights in a 30-cm-long channel, the microboat had a speed in the order of 0.1 …


Light Trapping And Absorption Enhancement For High Performance Solar Cells And Infrared Photodetectors, Li Chen Jan 2010

Light Trapping And Absorption Enhancement For High Performance Solar Cells And Infrared Photodetectors, Li Chen

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation presents the work on light trapping and absorption enhancement in solar cells and infrared photodetectors. Hemispherical microstructure based omni-directional anti reflection (Omni-AR) coating has been designed and developed for solar cells, based on rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) and convective coating process. Omni-AR coating enhances light absorption in solar cells, due to the reduced reflection on the structured solar cell surfaces, and the increased optical path length (OPL) inside the solar cells. Omni-AR coating has been demonstrated as a cost-effective light trapping approach for different material systems, with very low reflection and high transmission over a large range of …