The motor protein dynein is responsible for cellular processes such as axonal transport and cell division by delivering vital information along the microtubule track. A failed delivery can cause severe damage to the cell’s functionality and lead to neurological diseases. Despite dynein’s rich history in cellular research, the mechanism of...
In this work, we systematically explore the effectiveness of optical aberration correction over a wide range of optical depths using the Segmented and Zernike Polynomial bases. We manufacture a set of 16 optical phantom samples consisting of a clear polyester resin substrate embedded with varying concentrations of aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃)...
This dissertation covers my work relating to the application of strong terahertz (THz) radiation to study the nonlinear properties of nano-scale material. It presents experimental and numerical studies on the optical and electronic properties of various material system including single-layer graphene, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), nanoantenna-patterned gallium arsenide (GaAs) and...
In this dissertation, a series of studies in the field of terahertz (THz) science are presented, specifically using nonlinear THz spectroscopy. We exploit huge field enhancement and subwavelength confinement in plasmonic structures. There are three distinct projects which will be discussed: nonlinear THz spectroscopy using plasmonic induced transparency (PIT), THz-triggered...
This dissertation reports on the computational physics research in the area of
inhomogeneous fluids. I first discuss the theory background for this work beginning
with water, which is important for the two published articles that are presented in
this work (Chapters 5 and 6). Next, I give a brief overview...
Gallium arsenide shows excellent promise for terahertz generation using mid infrared.
This is for two reasons. First, the indices of refraction for the terahertz (nTHz=3.61 at 1 THz) and mid infrared (nopt=3.431 at 2 μm) are close allowing a long interaction length.
Second, the linear absorption is low at terahertz...
BaCuChF (Ch = S, Se, Te) materials are chalcogen-based transparent conductors with wide optical band gaps (2.9 – 3.5 eV) and a high concentration of free holes (10¹⁸ – 10²⁰ cm⁻³) caused by the presence of copper vacancies. Chalcogen vacancies compensate copper vacancies in these materials, setting the Fermi level...
Suspended metallic carbon nanotubes (m-CNTs) exhibit a remarkably large transport gap that can exceed 100 meV. Both experiment and theory suggest that strong electron-electron interactions play a crucial role in generating this electronic structure. To further understand this strongly-interacting system, we have performed electronic measurements of suspended m-CNTs with known...
We study photocurrent generation in individual suspended carbon nanotube pn junctions using spectrally-resolved scanning photocurrent microscopy. Spatial maps of the photocurrent allow us to determine the length of the pn junction intrinsic region, as well as the role of the n-type Schottky barrier. We show that reverse-bias operation eliminates complications...