Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Synthesis And Characterization Of Copper Nanoparticles And Copper-Polymer Nanocomposites For Plasmonic Photovoltaic Applications, Sabastine Chukwuemeka Ezugwu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Deposition techniques for the fabrication of metal nanostructures influence their morphological properties, which in turn control their optical behavior. Here, copper nanoparticles (np-Cu’s) were grown using a deposition system that was specifically set up during this work, and is based on a radio frequency (RF) sputtering source that can operate at high temperature and under bias voltage. The effect of deposition conditions (RF power, chamber pressure and substrate bias voltage) on RF sputtered np-Cu’s using RF sputtering has been studied. The study included a comparison between the morphological and optical properties of as-grown np-Cu’s and thermally treated samples. The characterization …

The Behavior Of A Falling Particle In A Funnel, Tahani Hassn Aldahri

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Recent theoretical work has suggested that a frictional, inelastic, spherical particle falling under gravity through a symmetric funnel will display interesting behavior as a function of the angle of the funnel walls. We have studied this system experimentally, using high-speed video to record the particle trajectories. By analyzing the video images, we have analyzed the time the ball spends in the funnel and its energy loss as functions of the angle of the walls with respect to the horizontal. The coefficient of restitution was also varied by using different balls and funnel materials. We found some similarities and differences between …

Influence Of Quantum Dot Structure On The Optical Properties Of Group Iv Materials Fabricated By Ion Implantation, Eric G. Barbagiovanni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In nanostructures (NSs), to acquire a fundamental understanding of the electronic states by studying the optical properties is inherently complicated. A widely used simplification to this problem comes about by developing a model for a small scale representation of types of NSs and applying it to a hierarchy of fabrication methods. However, this methodology fails to account for structural differences incurred by the fabrication method that lead to differences in the optical properties. Proper modelling is realized by first considering the proper range of experimental parameters individually as inputs to a theoretical model and applying the correct parameters to the …

Molecular Dynamics Studies Of Water Flow In Carbon Nanotubes, Alexander D. Marshall

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We present classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations providing insight into the behaviour of water. We focus on confined water, the properties of which are often significantly different from the properties of bulk water.

First, we performed several simulations investigating the handling of long-range interactions in GROMACS [1], a MD simulation package. Selection of simulation protocols such as handling of long-range interactions is often overlooked, sometimes to the significant detriment of the final result [2, 3, 4]. Ensuring that the chosen simulation protocols are appropriate is a critical step in computer simulation.

Second, we performed MD simulations where water flowed between …

Phase Field Crystal Approach To The Solidification Of Ferromagnetic Materials, Niloufar Faghihi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The dependence of the magnetic hardness on the microstructure of magnetic solids is investigated, using a field theoretical approach, called the Magnetic Phase Field Crystal model. We constructed the free energy by extending the Phase Field Crystal (PFC) formalism and including terms to incorporate the ferromagnetic phase transition and the anisotropic magneto-elastic effects, i.e., the magnetostriction effect. Using this model we performed both analytical calculations and numerical simulations to study the coupling between the magnetic and elastic properties in ferromagnetic solids. By analytically minimizing the free energy, we calculated the equilibrium phases of the system to be liquid, non-magnetic …

Electrohydrodynamic Enhancement Of Heat Transfer And Mass Transport In Gaseous Media, Bulk Dielectric Liquids And Dielectric Thin Liquid Films, Seyed Reza Mahmoudi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Controlling transport phenomena in liquid and gaseous media through electrostatic forces has brought new important scientific and industrial applications. Although numerous EHD applications have been explored and extensively studied so far, the fast-growing technologies, mainly in the semiconductor industry, introduce new challenges and demands. These challenges require enhancement of heat transfer and mass transport in small scales (sometimes in molecular scales) to remove highly concentrated heat fluxes from reduced size devices. Electric field induced flows, or electrohydrodynamics (EHD), have shown promise in both macro and micro-scale devices.

Several existing problems in EHD heat transfer enhancements were investigated in this thesis. …

Magnetic Properties And Defects In Iron Implanted Strontium Titanate Single Crystals And Thin Films, Misha Chavarha

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Physical vapor deposition was used to grow good quality crystalline stoichiometric SrTiO₃ thin films on Si(001) substrate using a systematic approach starting from understanding of kinetics and thermodynamics of the system and finishing with the development of procedure for high quality SrTiO₃/Si interface. Growth of optimized SrTiO₃ perovskite structure on Si requires careful transformation of a thin interfacial SrSix layer into the initial SrTiO₃ lattice cells. The critical aspects of the growth, such as low temperature and low oxidant partial pressure, are explained in details. Crystallinity and stoichiometry of SrTiO₃ were verified using powder …