Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Plasmonic And Photonic Designs For Light Trapping In Thin Film Solar Cells, Liming Ji

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thin film solar cells are promising to realize cheap solar energy. Compared to conventional wafer cells, they can reduce the use of semiconductor material by 90%. The efficiency of thin film solar cells, however, is limited due to insufficient light absorption. Sufficient light absorption at the bandgap of semiconductor requires a light path more than 10x the thickness of the semiconductor. Advanced designs for light trapping are necessary for solar cells to absorb sufficient light within a limited volume of semiconductor. The goal is to convert the incident light into a trapped mode in the semiconductor layer.

In this dissertation, …

Use Of Ultra High Vacuum Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition For Graphene Fabrication, Shannen Adcock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Graphene, what some are terming the "new silicon", has the possibility of revolutionizing technology through nanoscale design processes. Fabrication of graphene for device processing is limited largely by the temperatures used in conventional deposition. High temperatures are detrimental to device design where many different materials may be present. For this reason, graphene synthesis at low temperatures using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is the subject of much research. In this thesis, a tool for ultra-high vacuum plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (UHV-PECVD) and accompanying subsystems, such as control systems and alarms, are designed and implemented to be used in future graphene growths. …

Numerical Simulation Of Nanopulse Penetration Of Biological Matter Using The Adi-Fdtd Method, Fei Zhu

Doctoral Dissertations

Nanopulses are ultra-wide-band (UWB) electromagnetic pulses with pulse duration of only a few nanoseconds and electric field amplitudes greater than 105 V/m. They have been widely used in the development of new technologies in the field of medicine. Therefore, the study of the nanopulse bioeffects is important to ensure the appropriate application with nanopulses in biomedical and biotechnological settings. The conventional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method for solving Maxwell's equations has been proven to be an effective method to solve the problems related to electromagnetism. However, its application is restricted by the Courant, Friedrichs, and Lewy (CFL) stability condition that confines …