Daniel Parks with Tanmay Vachaspati & Harsh MathurAnalytic Derivation of the Distribution of Dark Matter(started in spring 2010 and finishing in fall 2010)The distribution of dark matter in the cosmos is not currently known by any analytically derived formula. Previous investigators have been unable to derive such a formula,...
Academic Year
Nicholas Reinsvold with Charles RosenblattSurface Orientation of Chiral Liquid CrystalsIt is well documented that placing chiral liquid crystal molecules on an achiral surface causes the molecular orientation to twist locally due to the chirality of molecules. This experiment will use two distinct chiral molecular species in a mixture. One...
Andrew Rosenberger with Kathleen KashSTM Study of Self Arranging Hexagonal Nano-latticesHexagonal lattices of Benzene rings doped with sulfonic acid groups attached to substituted biphenyl units are promising, new structures being produced by Macromolecular Science and Engineering. When deposited on surfaces, these molecules can form stacked hexagonal arrays with a...
Joshua Rubin with Justin Sydnor (Dept. of Economics)Projection of the Solar Tech Industry as Motivated by Underlying PrinciplesWithin the United States, and elsewhere in the world, there is a growing concern over the limited resources that are useable as energy sources. Technologies such as mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline solar cells,...
Aaron Shojinaga with Jie ShanAC Conductivity of Silver Nanoparticles(started in fall 2009 and continuing into fall 2010)The electrical conductivity for bulk metal is described by the well-known Drude model. As the size of the metal is reduced to the nanometer scale however, the energy levels become discrete, rather than...
Lily Stanley with Xuan GaoNanowire Transistors for DNA SensingAs electrical devices have gotten smaller nanowires have become a novel material for use in fabricating these devices. Using nanowires transistors can be made on the nano scale. I will be using these transistors to create a biomolecule sensor, with the...
Kyle Strodtbeck with David FarrellMeasuring the Density of BoneDensity is a fundamental property of condensed matter and some recent work suggests that there may be a direct relationship between it and magnetic susceptibility for biological materials. Magnetic susceptibility may therefore provide a method to image the density of the...
Daniel Thomson with Glenn StarkmanDark Matter Capture by Binary SystemsDark matter is thought to pervade the galaxy, making up over 90% of its total mass. Dark matter particles traveling through multi-body bound gravitational systems, such as binary star systems or planetary systems, can scatter off those bodies and become...
Corbett Walsh with Prof. George Dubyak (SOM, Dept. of Physiology & Biophysics)Regulation of ATP release in AstrocytesCell volume regulation is of particular physiologic importance in neural tissues due to the adverse effects of even small changes in brain volume. In the brain, extracellular ATP acts as an autocrine /...
Alexander Wijangco with Glenn StarkmanConstraining Dark Matter with X-RaysDark matter is a generic term for an exotic class of particles that might explain the observed gravitational movements of stars and galaxies. However, despite the best efforts of several experiments, dark matter particles have gone undetected and the constraints which...