This dissertation concerns several problems in the fields of light interaction with nanostructured media, metamaterials, and plasmonics. We present a technique capable of extending operational bandwidth of hyperbolic metamaterials based on interleaved highly-doped InGaAs and undoped AlInAs multilayer stacks. The experimental results confirm theoretical predictions, exhibiting broadband negative refraction response...
The Introductory Physics 20X series has developed an advanced, metacognitive curriculum which requires a high degree of active learning in order for students to succeed in the class. Recently, the series has been transferred to the online campus, Ecampus, and is now available for distance learners. My work is focused...
Optical potential for antikaon-nucleus strong interactions are constructed using
elementary antikaon-nucleus potentials determined previously. The optical potentials
are used to determine the existence of a kaon hypernucleus. Modern three
dimensional visualization techniques are used to study model dependences, new
methods for speeding the calculation of the optical potential are developed,...
This study aimed to investigate students' models of probability in a modern physics context. The study was divided into three phases. The first phase explored student pre-knowledge about probability before modem physics instruction. The second phase investigated student understanding of concepts related to probability such as wave-particle behavior, the uncertainty...
We developed a model to investigate the dielectric properties of the
BaTiO₃ − Bi(Zn₁/₂Ti₁/₂)O₃ (BT-BZT) solid solution, which is a relaxor ferroelectric and exhibits long range disorder. The model uses ab initio methods
to determine all polarization states for every atomic configuration of 2 x 2 x 2
supercells of...
One of the newer and rapidly developing approaches in quantum computing is based on "quantum walks," which are quantum processes on discrete space that evolve in either discrete or continuous time and are characterized by mixing of components at each step. The idea emerged in analogy with the classical random...
In this dissertation we study the electromagnetic properties of plasmonic metamaterials. We develop an analytical description to solve the fundamental problem of free-space scattering in planar plasmonic systems by utilizing anisotropic metamaterials. We show with exact numerical simulations that these manufactured materials do completely eliminate the scattering, and even in...
Computer simulations invoking the Metropolis Algorithm and Monte Carlo techniques were constructed to model the behavior ofvarious systems of magnetic semiconductors. Among the systems modeled were bulk type II FCC antiferromagnets and simple cubic thin films and superlattices. Studies of bulk antiferromagnets revealed dependence of Neel Temperature on nearest neighbor...
As part of a research program to study the transitional region of N=88
isotones, ¹⁵²Tb was produced by the reaction ¹⁵¹Eu(α,3n)¹⁵²Tb in the 88" cyclotron
located at LBNL. Gamma-ray spectroscopy of the radiation emitted from excited
¹⁵²Gd following the β⁺ decay of ¹⁵²Tb has been performed using an array of...
The thermodynamic and structural effects of highly anisotropic, short-ranged attraction are investigated for single- and four-site interaction models using Wertheim's multi-density graph theory of chemical association. Both models consist of associating hard spheres, where the saturable attraction sites are described by conical wells centered in the hard core and evaluated...