Physics Commons^™

Pt-Symmetry And Eigenmodes, Tamara Gratcheva

University Honors Theses

Spectra of systems with balanced gain and loss, described by Hamiltonians with parity and time-reversal (PT) symmetry is a rich area of research. This work studies by means of numerical techniques, how eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of a Schrodinger operator change as a gain-loss parameter changes. Two cases on a disk with zero boundary conditions are considered. In the first case, within the enclosing disk, we place a parity (P) symmetric configuration of three smaller disks containing gain and loss media, which does not have PT-symmetry. In the second case, we study a PT-symmetric configuration …

Spectroscopic End Point Detection With An Electron Beam Evaporator, Ryan Mcgraw

University Honors Theses

Spectroscopic end point detection is a common tool used for measuring slope changes in wavelength intensity. Using algorithms able to apply this concept, coatings will be able to be dynamically measured in real time and stopped at the appropriate level to ensure process uniformity. It is currently applied to reductive processes such as etching, where the surface will start to be eaten away, creating a plasma. When the entire amount of a material on a substrate has been eaten away, the plasma will change color as it is beginning to etch a different material. Using a spectrometer, this point where …

Self-Contained Photon Coincidence Counting With Ni Myrio Ecosystem, Georges Oates Larsen, Andres H. La Rosa

University Honors Theses

Digital coincidence counting units (CCU) have made experimental verification of fundamental quantum mechanical principles financially accessible to undergraduate level teaching programs. However, recent implementations of these systems are not easily ported to National Instruments (NI) FPGAs, making them unsuitable for physics departments that have heavily invested in the NI ecosystem. Therefore, there is clear need for a detailed implementation based on an NI FPGA. We present a formal description of one such implementation, based on the NI myRIO (NI's lower-cost, student-oriented offering) which achieves 6.9 ns minimum guaranteed-distinguishable delay and 32.2 MHz peak coincidence counting rate with four input channels …

Synthesis And Characterization Of The 2-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides, Robert Browning

Dissertations and Theses

In the last 50 years, the semiconductor industry has been scaling the silicon transistor to achieve faster devices, lower power consumption, and improve device performance. Transistor gate dimensions have become so small that short channel effects and gate leakage have become a significant problem. To address these issues, performance enhancement techniques such as strained silicon are used to improve mobility, while new high-k gate dielectric materials replace silicon oxide to reduce gate leakage. At some point the fundamental limit of silicon will be reached and the semiconductor industry will need to find an alternate solution. The advent of graphene led …

Modeling The Optical Response To A Near-Field Probe Tip From A Generalized Multilayer Thin Film, A.J. Lawrence

Dissertations and Theses

The contrast mechanism in Kerr imaging is the apparent angle through which the plane of polarization is rotated upon reflection from a magnetic surface. This can be calculated for a well characterized surface given the polarization state of the incident light. As in traditional optical microscopy, the spatial resolution is limited by diffraction to roughly half the wavelength of the illumination light.

The diffraction limit can be circumvented through the use of near-field scanning optical microscopy, in which the illumination source is an evanescent field at the tip of a tapered optical fiber. A novel probe design for near-field optical …

Pinhole Neutral Atom Microscopy, Philip James Witham

Dissertations and Theses

This work presents a new form of microscopy, the instrument constructed to demonstrate it, the images produced and the image contrast mechanisms seen for the first time. Some of its future scientific potential is described and finally, recent work towards advancing the method is discussed.

Many forms of microscopy exist, each with unique advantages. Of several broad categories that they could be grouped into, those that use particle beams have proven very generally useful for micro and nano-scale imaging, including Scanning Electron, Transmission Electron, and Ion Beam microscopes. These have the disadvantage, however, of implanting electric charges into the sample, …

Crystallographic Image Processing With Unambiguous 2d Bravais Lattice Identification On The Basis Of A Geometric Akaike Information Criterion, Taylor Thomas Bilyeu

Dissertations and Theses

Crystallographic image processing (CIP) is a technique first used to aid in the structure determination of periodic organic complexes imaged with a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM). The technique has subsequently been utilized for TEM images of inorganic crystals, scanning TEM images, and even scanning probe microscope (SPM) images of two-dimensional periodic arrays. We have written software specialized for use on such SPM images. A key step in the CIP process requires that an experimental image be classified as one of only 17 possible mathematical plane symmetry groups. The current methods used for making this symmetry determination are not entirely …

Development And Implementation Of Acoustic Feedback Control For Scanning Probe Microscopy, Rodolfo Fernandez Rodriguez

Dissertations and Theses

A remote-sensing acoustic method for implementing position control feedback in Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) is presented. The capabilities of this feedback control using the new Whispering Gallery Acoustic Sensing (WGAS) method is demonstrated in a Shear-force Scanning Probe Microscope that uses a sharp probe attached to a piezoelectric Quartz Tuning Fork (QTF) firmly mounted on the microscope's frame. As the QTF is electrically driven its mechanical response reaches the SPM frame which then acts as a resonant cavity producing acoustic modes measured with an acoustic sensor strategically placed on the SPM head. The novelty of the WGAS resides in using …

The Application Of Exact Electrodiffusion Theory To Ion Transport Across Lipid Bilayer Membranes, Scott Cohen

Dissertations and Theses

The question of how ions interact with each other and with the potential energy barrier in thin lipid bilayer membranes has interested investigators for several years. The application of electrodiffusion theory to the study of this question is the central theme of this work. We have calculated current-voltage curves for barriers of various shapes and heights, in each case by means of numerically integrating the exact electrodiffusion equation as well as this same equation in the constant field approximation. We have also calculated the total charge in the membrane for the same conditions under which we have calculated the current-voltage …

Electrostatic Tem Studies Of Magnetic Domains In Thin Iron Films, Hideaki Karamon

Dissertations and Theses

An electron microscope with electrostatic lenses was used for high resolution studies of magnetic domains in thin iron films.

Observation methods used to determine the directions of local magnetization in iron thin films were the Lorentz method and the Foucault method.

We studied how Bloch line-crosstie pairs and crosstie main walls behave in applied, in-plane magnetic fields. We found that crosstie main walls remain unchanged until crosstie density goes nearly to zero when the field is applied perpendicular to the main wall. A twisted type of domain appears where crossties disappear.

Effective Force Constant Ratios: Iron In Iridium And Rhodium, Dennis Munsterman

Dissertations and Theses

Classical methods of analyzing heat capacity data for the characteristic moments of the frequency distribution are applied to iridium and rhodium. Impurity moments are determined from high and low temperature f values. These moments are combined by modern theory to estimate the magnitude of the host-host to host-impurity force constant ratio. Ratios of the various host moments are also examined.

The Dynamics Of An Hcp Crystal With A Substitutional Defect, Pramod C. Karulkar

Dissertations and Theses

We examine the problem of the dynamics of a hexagonal close packed crystal with a single substitutional impurity. The effects of the mass and the force constant changes due to the introduction of the impurity atom are taken into account assuming nearest neighbor interactions under the harmonic approximation. Using Green’s function and group theoretical methods, the equations of motion for the perturbed normal modes are obtained in an exact form. The calculations are performed by allowing for very general force constant changes which can have noncentral as well as central contributions. Further, by assuming central forces, we simplify the equations …

Evidence For The Existence Of Two Stable Sites For Cobalt Impurity Atoms In Aluminum, Arun Venkatachar

Dissertations and Theses

Using Fe⁵⁷Mössbauer spectroscopy, two alternative sites occupied by cobalt (10^-4 at. % ) impurity atoms in aluminum have been isolated. The substitutional site A is the stable position after annealing the sample above 840 K, followed by a rapid quench. The impurity atoms in site A are characterized by a single line Mössbauer spectrum (indicative of a cubic environment), a room-temperature f = 0.502 (r. m. s. displ. 0.071 A) and an I. S. (reI. to Fe) = -0.421 mm/sec. For anneals below 770 K the cobalt atoms migrate to site B, which is characterized by a …

Crystal Structure Determination Of Β-Lactoglobulin From Electron Micrographs, Richard Roeter

Dissertations and Theses

Often electron micrographs exhibit a repeating structure. Sometimes this repeating structure satisfies the definition of a crystal in that it has a three dimensional repeating structure. If the unit cell structure of this repeating structure can be determined it can be used to help categorize different sections of a particular sample. In some cases, the use of optical diffraction analysis of electron micrographs with repeating structure is a method of determining the unit cell structure.

Samples of β-Lactoglobulin were prepared for viewing in the electron microscope using both the crystalline material and carbon replicas of the crystal surface. Because the …

Electron Optical Study Of A Secondary Electron Multiplier, Chang Min Shen

Dissertations and Theses

Electron orbital theory was applied to the design of the geometrical structure of an electron multiplier for an image intensifier. A special structure satisfying production requirements was studied. Electron optical calculations consisted of determining the potential distribution and tracing the electron trajectories. Liebmann's procedure was used to solve Laplace's equation with constant potentials on the multiplier electrodes as boundary conditions. The trajectories were determined by solving the equation of motion in an electrostatic field using a Runge-Kutta procedure. The initial conditions for the trajectories were the initial energies, initial positions, and the initial directions of the secondary electrons. The plotted …

Investigation Of The Alpha-Sub-Gamma Phase In Alnico 6, Cortez Samuel

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research project was to study the αᵧ phase in Alnico 6. Other phases were studies for comparison. Also the effect of an applied magnetic field on the formation of the αᵧ phase was investigated.

Three single crystals of Alnico 6 were heat treated for one hour—one at 1250°C, one at 1000°C, and one at 800°C—and water-quenched. The microstructure of each sample was observed with the optical microscope, and X-ray diffraction patterns were taken to determine the crystal structure of the phases present.

Several single crystal samples of Alnico 6 were heat treated at 1000°C and furnace-cooled. …