Materials Science and Engineering Commons^™

Compensation And Characterization Of Gallium Arsenide, Randy A. Roush

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The properties of transition metals in gallium arsenide have been previously investigated extensively with respect to activation energies, but little effort has been made to correlate processing parameters with electronic characteristics. Diffusion of copper in gallium arsenide is of technological importance due to the development of GaAs:Cu bistable photoconductive devices. Several techniques are demonstrated in this work to develop and characterize compensated gallium arsenide wafers. The material is created by the thermal diffusion of copper into silicon-doped GaAs. Transition metals generally form deep and shallow acceptors in GaAs, and therefore compensation is possible by material processing such that the shallow …

The Current Voltage Characteristics Of Electron Beam Controlled Thin Film Diamond Switches, Christopher Anthony Molina

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The dark current of natural diamond thin films and the induced current due to electron-beam irradiation was measured up to a range of 7000Ncm'. The contact material was aluminum, annealed and unannealed. Switching experiments were performed with electron energies ranging from 70keV to 172keV. The switching results obtained are strongly dependent on the biasing polarity, incident electron energy, and whether the contact is blocking or Ohmic in nature. A simple model which takes traps into consideration allows us to explain the various switching responses. The range of electrons which define, in part, the switch mode was measured for one sample …

Transient Simulations And Modelling Of Semi-Insulating Gaas Photoconductive Switches, Prasun Kumar Raha

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a one-dimensional transient simulator for Photoconductive Semiconductor Switches (PCSS) taking into consideration the material characteristics, the internal physical effects, and the external circuit. Simulations have been performed to study the device behavior at different voltage levels for copper-doped silicon-compensated GaAs material, though other materials could easily be simulated by changing the parameters. The model includes hole transport, and the results demonstrate the effect of hole injection, with and without recombination centers. In addition to developing a one-dimensional transient simulator, the role of various physical effects, such as the field-dependence of trapping …

An Experimental And Analytical Investigation Of The Iosipescu Shear Test For Composite Materials, Barry Stuart Spigel

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Mechanical properties of composite materials under shear loading are difficult to determine. The Iosipescu Shear test, originally proposed for metals, has in recent years been applied to composites. It has the advantages of small specimen size, simple loading and a reasonably uniform shear stress in the test section.

The purpose of this work is to study the validity of the Iosipescu test method for measuring the shear modulus and shear strength of composites. Finite element analyses indicate that optimum specimen geometry and load locations depend upon the degree of orthotropy of the composite. Test results for a quasi-isotropic graphite/epoxy laminate …

The Development Of A Method To Extract High Purity Oxygen From The Martian Atmosphere, Dongchuan Wu

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A glow-discharge in an ambient Mars atmosphere (total pressure of 5 torr, composed of 95% carbon dioxide) results in the dissociation of carbon dioxide molecules into carbon monoxide and oxygen. If the glow-discharge zone is maintained adjacent and close to a silver membrane, operated at temperatures above 400°C, atomic and molecular oxygen, produced by the glow-discharge, can be separated from the other species by atomic diffusion through the membrane to an ultrahigh vacuum region where the desorbed O₂ is then collected. Experiments have been conducted to study the behavior of the glow discharge in both molecular oxygen and carbon …

Stress Fields In Composites With A Variable Interphase Under Thermo-Mechanical Loadings, Nianfeng Chen

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An interphase in a composite material has a important role for the composite performance. It influences directly or indirectly the strength, fatigue performance and effective properties of the composite. Recently, interphase has drawn increasing attention in composite mechanics. To the best of our knowledge, however, no one seems to have considered the effect of the variable material prope1ty in the interphase on the stress field in the composite material. In this research, the stress fields are determined in the continuous fiber composite and the particulate composite by using the four concentric circular cylinders model and the four phase spheres model, …

Diamond Thin Film Sensors For Hypersonic Flow Studies, Bhaskar Kumar Bulusu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Conventional metal film sensors can measure flow instabilities of the order of 60 kHz. The turbulence fluctuations in the hypersonic regime are of the order of 200- 400 kHz. To measure these fluctuations, sensors with an enhanced frequency response are required. Therefore, it is required to identify the parameters to enhance the frequency response. These include parameters such as the temperature sensitivity, the resistivity, the thermal conductivity, the diffusivity, specific heat capacity and the geometric size and shape of the film and the substrate. A selection of materials was then carried out to maximize the frequency response. Diamond was identified …

Boundary Value Problems In Rectilinearly Anisotropic Thermoelastic Solids, Gilbert Kerr

Mathematics & Statistics Theses & Dissertations

The boundary value problems which are considered are the type that arise due to the presence of a Griffith crack (or cracks) in an anisotropic thermoelastic solid. The thermoelastic field, in such materials, when the infinitesimal theory is employed, is governed by a set of elliptic partial differential equations. The general solution of these equations is expressed in terms of arbitrary analytic functions whose real parts, in turn, are expressed in terms of Fourier type integrals or Fourier series. Integral transform techniques are then used to determine the stress intensity factors (and other pertinent information) for various crack geometries. In …

Light Injection From An Active Cladding To The Core Of A Fiber Optic Fluorosensor, Alvin Leon Bryant

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A fluorosensor works on the basis of light injection from the clad into the core of an optical fiber. The sensitivity of such a sensor depends on the efficiency of light injection. Conditions necessary for a high injection efficiency are experimentally determined. The refractive index difference between the core and the clad,ⁿcore ^-nclad, must be maximized to achieve a high injection efficiency. Since an air clad has the least refractive index, a bare core fiber will have a maximum efficiency. Standard optical fibers used for communication employ a minimum value for ⁿcore ^-nclad, in order …

Study Of Single-Fiber Fiber Optic Lever Microphone, Trung Duc Nguyen

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Fiber optic sensors are widely used in today's technological applications, providing many advantages that conventional sensors lack. In particular, there is a demand in hypersonic applications to develop microphones to measure acoustic pressure that performs in high temperature and noisy surroundings. This thesis analyzes fiber optic lever microphones (FOLM), since they perform at high temperatures. An FOLM system is an intensity modulated sensor, which is simple to implement and is small in size. Two models of the FOLM have been fabricated and calibrated. The first model uses a seven-element fiber array while the second uses a single-fiber to transmit and …

Fiber Enhanced Viscoelastic Damping Polymers And Their Application To Passive Vibration Control, Houchun Xia

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A new composite damping material is investigated, which consists of a viscoelastic matrix and high elastic modulus fiber inclusions. This fiber enhanced viscoelastic damping polymer is intended to be applied to light-weight flexible structures as surface treatment for passive vibration control. A desirable packing geometry for the composite material is proposed, which is expected to produce maximum shear strain in the viscoelastic damping matrix. Subsequently, a micromechanical model is established in which the effect of fiber segment length and relative motion between neighboring fibers are taken into account. Based on this model, closed form expressions for the effective storage and …

The Effects Of Electron Radiation On The Glass Transition Temperature Of A Polyetherimide, Kristen Tulloch Kern

Physics Theses & Dissertations

The effects of electron radiation on a polyetherimide (PEI), Ultem*, were investigated. In particular, the changes in the glass transition temperature (T_g) with absorbed radiation dose were studied. The polymer was exposed to mono-energetic beams of 100-keV electrons and 1.0-MeV electrons for doses up to 100 megagray (MGy). Dosimetry for the exposures was based on Monte-Carlo simulations of the transfer of energy from an energetic electron to the polymer and on comparison to Nylon standards. Dynamic mechanical analysis was used to determine the (T_g) for non-exposed PEI and the changes in (T_g) resulting from …

Influence Of Processing Techniques On Copper Deep Levels Formation And On Photoconductivity In Silicon Doped Gallium Arsenide, Lucy M. Thomas

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Diffusion of copper in silicon doped gallium arsenide under different diffusion conditions is studied. Copper compensated silicon doped gallium arsenide (GaAs:Si:Cu) is used as switch material for bulk optically controlled semiconductor switch, and on-state photoconductivity of the switch is primarily due to the properties of the copper deep levels introduced in the material during diffusion. Gallium arsenide being a compound semiconductor, presence of vacancies and defects make the study of diffusion a complex process. The objective of the current research is twofold: a) to study the influence of diffusion conditions and processing techniques on copper deep level formation in silicon …

Glow-Discharge Enhanced Permeation Of Oxygen Through Silver, D. Wu, R. A. Outlaw, Robert L. Ash

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

The permeation of oxygen through Ag0.05Zr over the temperature range of 300-650°C under glow-discharge conditions has been studied and compared to the permeation of thermally dissociated molecular oxygen. A low-energy dc glow-discharge in O₂ has been employed which produced approximately 10% atoms. The permeation rate during the glow discharge was found to be much higher (a factor of ∼10) than without the glow discharge. The small fraction of oxygen atoms generated appears to dominate the permeation because of much higher solution probabilities. Below 500°C, the activation energy for the permeation with glow discharge was found to be 15.5 kcal/mol …

Superheating Of Bi(0001), E. A. Murphy, H. E. Elsayed-Ali, J. W. Herman

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Superheating of Bi(0001) by about 90 K above the bulk melting temperature is observed using time-resolved reflection high-energy electron diffraction with ∼200-ps time resolution. Larger temperature excursions above the bulk melting temperature result in melting accompanied by irreversible laser damage to the surface. The rhombohedral structure of Bi leads to very different behavior of material parameters upon melting as compared with fcc metals. Therefore, our observation of the superheating of Bi(0001), together with the previously observed superheating of Pb(111), suggests the generality of the superheating phenomenon.

An Experimental Study For The Effect Of Specimen Size On Shear Behavior Of Granular Materials, Clifton Linwood Parker Iv

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An experimental study was undertaken to look into the effect of specimen size on the volumetric behavior of granular triaxial specimens. It was hypothesized that the specimen preparation mold creates a unique particle arrangement near the perimeter of the specimen and thus, for smaller specimen diameter relative to the particle size, it will exhibit a greater effect of the unique particle arrangement on the volumetric behavior. particles was used A single distribution of spherical glass throughout the testing. The tested specimens were 3.6, 2.8, 2.0, 1.4, 1.0, and 0.6 inches in diameter with a fixed two to one specimen height …

A Novel Technique For Deep Level Characterization Of High-Resistivity Semiconductor Materials, Sridhar Panigrahi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An improved photo induced current transient spectroscopy (PICTS) technique is developed for studying deep level parameters in high-resistivity semiconductor materials. A new digital data acquisition approach and improvement in the cryogenics of the system have enabled us, for the first time in our laboratory, to detect CuA level in a copper doped silicon compensated gallium arsenide (GaAs:Si:Cu) sample. The digital approach improves both the signal to noise ratio (S/N) and the efficiency of the system. Also, multiple PICTS spectra in a single thermal cycle can be obtained. In the present work, various doped and undoped gallium arsenide ( GaAs) and …

Materially Nonlinear Finite Element Analyses Of Trusses And Slab-On-Grade Problems, Moayyad Moh'd Al-Nasra

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The overall approach is to employ the finite-element method along with specified material models to account for material nonlinearity. This study includes two different applications: truss structures and slabs-on-grade.

Procedures for materially nonlinear analysis of truss structures, which apply for both determinate and indeterminate cases are proposed. The proposed procedures are simple and can handle a variety of different stress-strain functions, and the applied load does not have to be incremental. Proposed procedures results are verified with the output of NASTRAN.

A finite-element model for slab-on-grade is introduced. The concrete slab is represented by eight-node brick elements, and the joints …

Transfer Function Models And Control Of A Flexible Structure Using Piezoelectric Laminates, Joseph A. Colvin

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The development of piezoelectric polymer films has generated a great deal of excitement in the structural controls community because they are lightweight, durable, distributed in nature and have broad band frequency characteristics. The flurry of research inspired by piezoelectric films has primarily been dedicated to using them as distributed sensors, and to a lesser extent, as distributed actuators.

Active damping of structural vibrations using piezoelectric polymer films as sensors and actuators has primarily been directed toward taking advantage of their distributed nature and employing various types of distributed control theory. This approach does not easily yield insight into the dynamics …

An Experimental Method For Determining Membrane Penetration, Jong W. Choi, Isao Ishibashi

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A new and simple experimental method is proposed for the determination of membrane penetration due to changes of the effective confining pressure in triaxial and hollow cylinder tests. The proposed method has advantages over existing methods in that it requires neither special devices nor questionable assumptions. It only requires a series of drained isotropic compression tests in a conventional triaxial device with plastic liners. The results from the proposed method are compared to those from several existing experimental and analytical methods.

Thermal Characterization Of Carbon Monoxide Oxidation Catalysts Using Thermogravimetric Analysts And Differential Scanning Calorimetry, Rene A. Bartgis

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Catalysts composed of platinum and/or palladium on tin (IV) oxide supports, with and without silica gel, as well as catalysts composed of gold on manganese oxide, have been developed for the recombination of carbon monoxide and oxygen to form carbon dioxide for use in carbon dioxide lasers. A thermogravimetric method and a differential scanning calorimetric method have been developed for the thermal characterization of these catalysts. The mass loss data and the enthalpy changes determined as the catalysts lost water were then related to existing activity data for these catalysts. No relationship was found between the thermal data and the …

Cathodoluminescence Of Gaas, Tyler Smith

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Cathodoluminescence of band-gap radiation across the bulk of a proposed semiconductor switch has been studied. Such a device relies on the efficient use of cathodoluminescence to modulate the conductivity of the switch. Diagnostics were configured to measure the intensity of band-gap radiation across the bulk of several switch samples. The measured results were compared to calculations based on a four energy level band-gap model which included two deep levels EL2 and HL10.

Q Improvement Of A 5.2 Ghz Te011 Cavity By Incorporating Y1Ba2Cu3O7-X, R. Joseph Leclear

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Research is undertaken to apply high temperature superconducting material to improve the quality factor (Q) of a 5.2 GHz cylindrical resonant cavity. In particular, the approach is to electrophoretically deposit polycrystalline Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O_7-x (YBCO) on the conducting surface of the cavity cylinder. Spalling of the YBCO ceramic coating due to expansion and contraction of the cavity during sintering and testing is overcome by segmenting the cylinder. Results show that the Q of the cavity is increased over that of a copper cavity at temperatures below 60 K. At 20 K, improvement exceeds a factor …

Monte Carlo Simulation Of Millimeter-Wave Gunn Effect Oscillators, Ramani Vaidyanathan

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Monte Carlo simulations have been carried out to investigate the performance of microwave Gunn oscillators. Three separate aspects of the simulation problem have been comprehensively addressed in this work. First, the presence of an external circuit has been self-consistently incorporated into the calculations. The inclusion of the external circuit facilitates a study of the circuit controlled regime, and correctly models effects arising from the time dependent boundary conditions. Secondly, microscopic details of the electronic relaxation mechanisms which ultimately control the frequency response limits, have been taken into account through an iterative Monte Carlo-Poisson scheme. This procedure overcomes a potential shortcoming …

Magnetic-Field Distributions In Zinc-Nickel Ferrite, T. A. Dooling, Desmond C. Cook

Physics Faculty Publications

The Mössbauer effect has been used to study the microscopic magnetic properties of the cubic microwave ferrite (Zn_0.41Ni_0.59)Fe₂O₄ at 300 K. The magnetically split spectrum is broad and unresolved due to the overlap of the hyperfine magnetic fields at the tetrahedral and octahedral sites. This is caused by a distribution of magnetic fields at each site. The distribution is especially large and asymmetric at the octahedral site and is due to the fact that the iron atoms at this site are influenced by the presence of both iron and zinc at the tetrahedral …

Phase Changes In Plasma‐Sprayed Zinc‐Nickel Ferrite, T. A. Dooling, Desmond C. Cook

Physics Faculty Publications

The magnetic and crystalline properties of a plasma‐sprayed coating of the microwave absorbing zinc‐nickel ferrite, (Zn_0.41Ni_0.59 )Fe₂O₄ have been studied at 300 K using the Mössbauer effect and x‐ray diffraction (XRD). Both techniques indicate that the plasma‐sprayed material separated into two phases. The first is a nickel‐rich phase with magnetic fields of 47.5 and 44.5 T at the tetrahedral and octahedral sites, respectively. The second is a zinc‐rich phase, zinc meta‐ferrite, having a small magnetic field of 4.2 T. The quadrupole splitting of this second phase is ΔE=0.34 mm s⁻¹, …

Micromechanics Of Granular Materials And Its Relation To Wave Velocity, Tarun K. Agarwal

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The macro characters of the granular materials depend upon micromechanical parameters such as the void ratio, particle shape, contact force distribution, and initial state of the fabric of the assembly. Since it is difficult to evaluate these internal parameters from laboratory experiments, a macro measure is desired which depends directly on these internal parameters. One such measure has been shown to be dynamic shear modulus but it was incomplete in predicting directional changes in the internal parameters. Therefore, it is hypothesized here that the complete elastic moduli matrix will have more direct information about the internal parameters, especially the dynamic …

Optical And High Electric Field Effects In Bulk Gallium Arsenide Switches, Randy Roush

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

During the past few years, bulk, photoconductive switching has become recognized as a viable topic for future research on moderate and high power switches. The two-pulse, or BOSS, concept relies on an excitation laser pulse, and a separate de-excitation pulse in conjunction with silicon doped, copper compensated, GaAs to create a variable temporal electrical pulse width. The research contained in this document provides information concerning the feasibility of the BOSS concept, as the switch is scaled to larger sizes, and higher voltage and current. The major concern will be the high voltage and current effects. The absorption length for 1064 …

Finite Element Analysis Of Structures With Constrained Viscoelastic Layer Damping, Yung Chen

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

It has been demonstrated that constrained viscoelastic layer damping treatments provide an effective means of passive control for structural vibration. These treatments dissipate vibrational energy by inducing shear strain in a thin layer of viscoelastic material. Our interest is in adding passive damping to a structure as an augmentation to active control. For such applications it is desirable to achieve high damping performance in a given frequency range with a minimum of added weight. Most damping treatments employ spatially continuous constraining layers over the entire viscoelastic layer. Plunkett and Lee have shown that the effectiveness of the damping treatment can …

A Systematic Procedure For The Analysis And Design Of Deployable Space Structures, Praveen Kumar

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An integrated graph theory and a symmetry-based approach have been developed for the type synthesis of deployable truss structures. Using this systematic approach, a bay of a deployable structure may be looked upon as being built around an axis or a plane of symmetry, including anti-symmetry. By providing a fictitious joint along this axis, the problem of structural design and analysis can be reduced to the study of one plane or face of the given structure. Each face is considered to be an assemblage of structural links connected by joints which form a closed kinematic chain. The conventional graph representation …