David McCauley with Alexis Abramson (Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering)Seebeck Coefficient of a Biologically Inspired Electrolytic Solution(started in spring 2010 and finishing in fall 2010)The seebeck coefficient is a measurement of the ability of a material to turn a temperature differential into a voltage differential. This has many applications including...
2011
Dylan Markovic with Corbin CovaultFabrication and Deployment of Cosmic Ray Detector Systems(started in fall 2009 and will be resumed and completed in spring 2011)When a cosmic ray interacts with the atmosphere of Earth, particles from the cosmic ray emit Cherenkov radiation. The main interests of the radiation in this...
Keith Lupton with Kenneth Singer and Anna SobolewskaNear Field Imaging of Charge in Bulk Heterojunction Photovoltaic MaterialsSolar Energy is by far the most plentiful source of energy in the world. Unlike fossil fuels, solar energy both can’t be depleted on Earth and doesn’t produce the negative externalities that effect...
Avinash Karamchandani with Rolfe PetschekAdiabatic Products of Transfer Matrices: Chirped Random Dielectric MirrorsWe will study theoretically a class of dielectric mirrors. A simple dielectric mirror is a periodic stack of layers with different, alternating indices of refraction that reflects light whose wavelength is close to four times the thickness...
Ethan Kleinbaum with Kathy KashPlasma Assisted Liquid Phase Epitaxial Growth of GaNThe semiconductor Gallium Nitride is a material widely used in current technological applications. The material has a band gap of 3.4 eV which corresponds to the energy of light in the ultraviolet range of the visible spectrum. This...
Josh Isaacson with Harsh MathurLarge Scale Graphene Transistor ArraysA fundamental principle of quantum mechanics is that all observables must be represented by hermitian operators. Until recently, it was believed that Quantum Mechanics could not be expressed in any manner, when Carl Bender found that it is possible to relax...
David Jones with LeShanda Korley (Macromolecular Science & Engr.)Exploring Barrier Properties of liquid Crystalline Multilayer Films(started in spring 2010 and finishing in fall 2010)The objective of this project is to examine the gas barrier properties of co-extruded polymer dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs). The PDLCs will be included in layers...
Stephen Fleming with Xuan GaoOxide Semiconductor Nanowire BiosensorsRecently, several physics research groups have demonstrated that nanowire field effect transistors (FETs) can function as sensors to detect extremely low concentrations of biological molecules in solution. Continued development and improved understanding of these types of sensors is essential for the emergence...
Benjamin Elder with Glenn StarkmanEvaluating the Stability of Electroweak StarsIt is believed that at extremely high temperatures a process called electroweak burning can occur wherein 9 quarks become 3 leptons. Experimental evidence of this process is desired, yet even the most powerful particle accelerators are unable to create the...
David Dashevsky with Dominique Durand (Biomedical Engineering)Optogenetic Muscle Fiber RecruitmentModern neural implants and stimulation devices that restore function to disabled patients utilize controlled currents that interact with voltage-gated ion channels lining a cell membrane. The recently-created field of optogenetics studies a new and alternative form of interacting with excitable...