Daniel Pfeffer with Claudia de Rham
The Accelerating Universe and Vacuum Energy
During his senior project, Daniel Pfeffer will investigate the acceleration of the Universe. He will explore whether or not it is possible to screen the effect of a large vacuum energy and give rise the amount of acceleration currently...
All projects
Slavko Rebec with Mark Griswold
Desktop MRI Console
In modern MRI courses there is a severe lack of hands on interactions with clinical MRI machines due to the high cost of the equipment. The goal of this three phase project is to design a desktop sized MRI scanner to be used...
Michael Sammon with Harsh Mathur
Axion Electrodynamics
Axions were introduced in particle physics in the 1970s to explain CP violation in the standard model. Subsequently axions have become a leading candidate for dark matter in Cosmology. The axion field has an unusual coupling to electromagnetism leading to remarkable electromagnetic phenomena that...
Gregory Stephen with Robert Brown and Bob Deissler
Design and Implementation of a Low Cost Malaria Diagnosis Device
A major challenge in malaria diagnosis is the need for a cheap, portable device capable of detecting low concentrations of the malaria pigment, hemozoin. The malaria parasite converts hemoglobin in the blood into...
Evan Telford with Harsh Mathur
The Relativistic Hofstadter Problem
Hofstadter studied electrons in a strong magnetic field perturbed by a weak periodic potential on a square lattice. He found that the energy levels plotted as a function of the magnetic field formed a beautiful pattern with a recursive structure now Hofstadter...
Matt Vaughan with Ben Holtzman, Felix Waldhauser, and Lapo Boschi
Can We Use Sound Perception to Identify Rupture Patterns in Earthquakes?
The processes by which earthquakes occur is poorly understood. In more detail, an earthquake results from the relative motion of blocks of crust, or pieces of tectonic plates, across a...
Dylan Yurgionas with Dan Akerib and Tom ShuttModeling Gamma Ray Background from LUX Characterization of background is important for finding WIMP recoil events. Based on their cross sections, WIMPs will only scatter once inside the two phase xenon detector, LUX. Incident gamma rays from trace radioactive impurities in detector...
Guiseppe Strangi Joined the faculty July 1, 2013
Jake Arwe with Xuan Gao
Incorporation of plasma into CVD graphene growth
Graphene is a 2D crystalline sheet of Carbon bonded together in a hexagonal lattice. Its unique structure gives it valuable optical and electrical properties that could be used in nanoelectronics or other fields. Current methods for graphene production do...
Jake Bell with Dan Akerib and Tom Shutt
Capacitive level sensors for use in liquid xenon detectors
The LUX dark matter experiment liquid xenon detector uses an electric field created by grids to increase the drift velocity of electrons into xenon gas causing them to produce additional scintillation photons. These photons...