Recent observations of tidewater glaciers find that the currently accepted model for predicting ice melt vastly underestimates observed melt rates. The release of pressurized air bubbles into the ocean from pores in the ice is one process that can amplify glacier melt. To incorporate this process into models, we need...
TiO₂ typically crystallizes into three polymorphs: brookite, rutile, and anatase. The phase selection problem in TiO₂ is the lack of understanding what conditions cause amorphous TiO₂ to crystallize into one of its three polymorphs during an annealing process. It has been recently shown that phase selection in TiO₂ is highly...
Fluorescent proteins have emerged as an essential toolset for bioimaging, creating a demand for engineering proteins with new and improved fluorescent properties. In this thesis, I explore the atomistic structure of REX-GECO1, a newly engineered protein biosensor that has unique optical properties. Since this protein has no available crystal structure,...
Solutions to Einstein's equations are usually found by considering ideal, simplified models. However, if the real world always matched ideal physics models, then farmers would milk black and white spheres. To combat this, Regge calculus was developed as a numerical approximation scheme for general relativity. In Regge calculus curved manifolds...
Different models show the effects of environmental decoherence on a quantum system
due to various environments of interest. One important quantity within these models is
the decoherence time, which tells us how quickly environments wash away the coherence of
local measurements. We can describe this effect as the quantum system...
The ring disclination is a topological defect that may be suitable for light polarization inside of a nematic liquid crystal. Due to its stability and chirality, the ring disclination could also allow for theoretical applications to quantum and classical field theories as a model for fundamental particles. In order to...
The purpose of this project is to verify scattering mechanisms in semiconductors by measuring transport properties and producing data that reflects existing research. The Hall effect is utilized to measure the resistivity, mobility and charge carrier concentration of the semiconductors: indium tin oxide (ITO), p-type silicon, and n-type silicon. By...
Instance segmentation, the classification and localization of objects in an image, is a problem in cellular biophysics due to the physiological relevance of cell morphology. Particularly, cancer cells migrate in tissue space by changing their body shape similarly to how humans extend their limbs to swim through water. Monitoring such...
A new class at Oregon State, PH 317: Experimental Physics, is designed to simulate a traditional laboratory research experience for undergraduate students. Several weeks of the class is devoted to Brownian motion experiments. Although this is a common topic for undergraduate lab classes, the experiment still needed some basic exploration...
The study of carrier transport in light-emitting diode (LED) has been researched extensively in the past. However, most studies were implementing voltages above the turn-on voltage of the LED. Research on LEDs well below the turn-on voltage threshold is comparatively scarce for good reasons. When the supply voltage is below...
Detecting gravitational waves is a topic at the forefront of physics. The first gravitational wave was detected by LIGO in 2015. This wave had a frequency in the 10s of Hz. This project is focused on detecting gravitational waves on the nanohertz spectrum using a pulsar timing array. This array...
Gravitational waves (GWs) are disturbances in spacetime that can be caused by events such as black hole mergers and supernovae, as well as continuous sources such as binary star systems. GWs offer a new avenue of astrophysical research and can reveal information about the early universe. GW detection can be...
Gravitational wave (GW) astronomy is a key ingredient in confirming Einstein’s theory of General Relativity and showing how the universe sends ripples through spacetime, distorting distances between two points. The confirmation of high-frequency GWs observed by The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015 was a breakthrough in our understanding...
Impedance spectroscopy is a method of modeling materials with equivalent circuits to determine electrical properties, such as the resistivity and the dielectric constant. We explore impedance spectroscopy, both theoretically and experimentally through applying the method to samples of BaCuS1-xSexF. Grain boundary effects were dominant in the results, and although they...
This study used SCOUT optical modelling software to create models of the reflectance and transmittance spectra generated by mixtures of titanium dioxide (TiO2) and tin oxide (SnO2). These models enabled identification of how altering the ratio of a mixture changes the optical response. By being able to identify how altering...
Terahertz (THz) frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum have been underutilized when compared to neighboring microwave and infrared frequencies, largely due to the difficulties controlling and detecting these fields. In a step toward gaining control over THz frequencies, my advisor Dr. Yun-Shik Lee’s group experimentally demonstrated optical-pulse THz-control over a plasmonic...
Organic semiconducting materials have emerged in the last few decades as viable alternatives to inorganics in broad applications from field effect transistors to LEDs to solar cells. Organics provide many benefits over inorganics such as flexibility, sustainability, and reduced cost. However, these materials are more susceptible to degradation in the...
Type I collagen fibers, the connective tissue that makes up the human breast, can be easily manipulated by cells or other outside factors. In previous studies, the alignment of collagen has been associated with the beginning of metastatic cancer, possibly influencing cancerous cells to migrate from the tumor. In this...
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 paper, I used a linguistic lens of translanguaging and semiotics to examine how K-12 mathematics teacher candidates (TCs) create meaning around computer science (CS) and mathematics concepts in a computational thinking (CT) setting. I defined the term “disciplinary repertoire” as a mirror to the concept of a linguistic...