High resolution images of a dim companion in a binary star system can be obtained using a Digital Micromirror Array (DMA) as an optical mask. Imaging can be problematic because the intense light from the main star can saturate the detector and leave the companion unnoticed. Placement of the DMA...
Rectial Program
| Scherzo - Oleg Miroshnikov
| Syrinx - Claude Debussy
| Bachianas Brasileiras No. 6 - Heitor Villa-Lobos (Feat. Kaleigh Hull on flute)
| Turkisher March - Christian Julius Weissenborn (Feat. Annie Kosanovic-Brown, Andrew McKelvey on bassoon)
| Pizzicati Polka - Leo Delibes (DeArr. Mark Eubanks) (Feat. Annie...
Understanding charge transfer in organic semiconductors is important for developing devices like organic light emitting diodes and flexible electronics. Optical tweezers have been used in many disciplines for trapping, manipulating, and analyzing microscopic objects such as microspheres, micro-organisms, and other colloidal particles. Using optical tweezers, studies have measured the average...
This study examines how students were interacting with pre-lecture videos via the BoxSand website. Students of the Fall 2015 and Fall 2016 introductory physics courses at Oregon State University were studied. The course was taught as a flipped classroom in which the instructional material was provided via BoxSand. BoxSand is...
Kinesins are intracellular motor proteins that transform chemical energy into mechanical energy through ATP hydrolysis to move along microtubules. Kinesin roles can vary among transportation, regulation, and spindle alignment within most cells. Many kinesin have been found to move towards the plus end of microtubules
at a steady velocity. For...
Optical trapping is a tool used throughout a wide variety of disciplines rang- ing from precisely probing and manipulating sub-micron organisms in biol- ogy to analyzing fundamental charge transfer in colloidal physics. This thesis presents research involving optical tweezer force measurements of polystyrene and silica microspheres. In addition, preliminary work...
This thesis looks at the third harmonic voltage response of a small incandescent lightbulb. The third harmonic voltage, or 3 omega (3ω) voltage, arises from applying a 1ω sinusoidal voltage across a resistive material. The 3ω voltage carries with it information about the thermal conductivity of the material. A lock-in-amplifier...
The neutron capture cross sections of ¹⁰⁶Cd, ¹⁰⁸Cd, ¹¹⁰Cd, ¹¹²Cd, ¹¹⁴Cd and ¹¹⁶Cd were determined in the present project. Four different OSU TRIGA reactor facilities were used to produce redundancy in the results and to measure the thermal cross section and resonance integral separately. When the present values were compared...
The Min protein system in Escherichia coli helps the cell division process by identifying the center of the cell [1, 7]. This system has been modeled succesfully computationally under standard conditions. There has been recent experimental interest in the cell division process for significantly perturbed cell shapes. We take the...
This project calculates the melting temperature as a function of pressure for a system defined by the Lennard-Jones 12-6 potential using molecular dynamic simulations. In a single atomistic simulation, the initial conditions are manipulated such that both a liquid and solid phase exist when thermal equilibrium is reached. Phase coexistence...
This thesis presents a measurement of the resonance integral and thermal cross section – which together represent the total neutron absorption cross section – of the naturally occurring isotopes of platinum that emit gamma radiation upon neutron absorption. The measurements were made via neutron activation analysis. Platinum samples were bombarded...
This investigation expands on earlier methods of using surface polarization reflection (SPR) to characterize the first few monolayers of a surface. Past research measured intensities of light reflecting off an SiO₂ optical flat inside a vacuum. Pressure of applied gas was changed to view a change in reflection. In an...
We present a report on a new capability for low temperature microscopy of organic
optoelectronic semiconductor materials. We may now perform photoluminescence (PL) and
conductivity measurements as a function of temperature on a microscopic level.
Testing confirmed the setup's ability to support microscopic measurements at pressures
of 10^-6 Torr and...
Studying the evolution of the Milky Way galaxy helps us understand our place in the Universe. Early evolution of the Galaxy can effectively be studied by observing stars with low metallicity values since they are the oldest stars still visible. Due to the formation of the Galaxy, the oldest stars...
Forward osmosis provides a low energy alternative for waste water purification. One of the major issues facing this process is the formation of a foulant layer preventing fluid transfer across the membrane. In recent studies, a conductive layer added to the membrane surface allowing an electric charge to be present...
The common choice in computational approximations, from 0 K to room temperature, of solid materials is to assume the structure remains unchanged at low temperatures. Often such an approximation is a very reasonable assumption. However, this approximation is not absolute and can break down even for relatively simple materials such...
This project investigated transient photoconductivity in organic donor-acceptor (D-A) systems, where a flourinated anthradithiophene, ADT-TES-F, acts as the donor. Various acceptor molecules were used, with different sidegroups, and different HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital) and LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital) energy level offsets relative to the acceptor. Thin film composites...
Understanding the electrical transport properties of graphene provides a basis for determining its future as a potential semiconducting device that can be used for the next generation of transistors and photodetectors. Graphene p-n junctions can also function as field effect transistors, and thus are a logical starting point for I-V...
Fractal visual hashes have the potential to replace traditional hexadecimal hashes for SSH applications with the goal of increasing user recognition of identities of remote computers. Rather than rely on human users manually comparing two hexadecimal hashes as part of SSH's public-private key encryption process, users would compare fractal images...
The addition of a weather ballooning program at Western Oregon University creates research opportunities for the Science Department, allows for projects in professional development for in-service teachers, fosters a partnership with Oregon Space Grant, and creates another option for students participating in the Program for Undergraduate Research Experiences. As the...
Carbon nanotubes are the subject of intense interest in virtually every field, from medicine to nano-scale electrical components. Multi-walled nanotubes exhibit a strong nonlinear response to high-field strength terahertz radiation. This research uses terahertz pulses with field strength exceeding 1 MV/cm generated by means of optical rectification utilizing a lithium...
An apparatus and method for calibrating planar laser induced fluorescence using a two-dye, two-color method was developed. A laser sheet was expanded from a 473 nm laser to excite dye solutions into higher energy states then fluoresced through spontaneous emission. The two fluorescent dyes selected for research and development were...
A method for determining bandgap energy using diffuse reflection is presented. The method uses bifurcated fiber optic cables to measure the diffuse reflection of diffusely reflective materials. The absorption spectrum is extrapolated from the diffuse reflection spectrum and used to determine the bandgap of powdered materials. The theory of nonspecular...
Coronagraphs have been used on telescopes for many years to block out bright
sources in the sky to allow nearby objects to be resolved. A digital micromirror
array (DMA) can be used in the focal plane of a telescope to serve as an adaptive
coronagraph. The DMA can be configured...
We developed an integration-based line detection algorithm. Existing line detection methods such as the Hough Transformation (HT) and its variants are insensitive to image noise. The reason is that HT finds lines by calculating the gradient of the image and assumes that the region where the gradient is the steepest...
We developed an integration-based line detection algorithm. Existing line detection methods such as the Hough Transformation (HT) and its variants are insensitive to image noise. The reason is that HT finds lines by calculating the gradient of the image and assumes that the region where the gradient is the steepest...