The Kittlitz's murrelet (Brachyramphus brevirostris) is a rare member of the seabird family Alcidae that breeds in coastal areas of Alaska and Beringian Russia. The species belongs to the genus Brachyramphus, an unusual seabird taxon in which all three extant species nest non-colonially, situating their nests up to 75 km...
Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs), primarily indium doped tin oxide, have been widely used in numerous fields since decades ago, such as solar cells, displays, OLEDs and ‘smart windows’ etc. Owing to the scarcity of indium, there is a great demand for new alternative materials. Metal/insulator/metal (MIM) diodes are a critical...
Level of aspiration plays a part in achievement motivation which
supports teaching/learning in motor performances. In the past,
females reported poorer ability in performances, set lower levels of
aspiration, and had lesser achievement motives than males (Crandall,
1969; Stein & Bailey, 1973; Sumner & Johnson, 1949). Some researchers
found there...
This thesis will discuss two critical components of a digital system -- domino logic styles and flip-flops. In today's microprocessors, both domino logic and flip-flops are essential to high-performance and low-power design. Two new domino logic styles are presented and analyzed, Double Edge Triggered (DET) and Double Data Rate (DDR)...
Current observations were obtained at three locations forming
a cross section along 70°34'W longitude in Long Island Sound. Fifteen
days of data were selected from each series so that nearly
simultaneous observations were used in the analysis.
Elementary statistics were computed for the data prior to
performing a least squares...
This thesis describes the transport properties observed in thermally treated graphite oxide (GO), which holds promise as an economical route to obtaining graphene. Graphene is a material consisting of a single atomic plane of carbon atoms and was first isolated as recently as 2004. Several isolation techniques have been investigated,...
The US military is evaluating the capabilities of emerging technologies based on IEEE 802.16 standard as a potential commercial off-the-shelf solution to support the communication requirements of the future war.
In the last few years, development in military and telecommunication industries have focused on an intensive use of broadband systems,...
Increased interest in the field of sensor technology stems from the availability of an inexpensive and robust sensor to detect and quantify the presence of a specific gas. Bulk p-CuO/n-ZnO heterocontact based gas sensors have been shown to exhibit the necessary sensitivity and selectivity characteristics, however, low interfacial CuO/ZnO contact...
Metal-insulator-metal (MIM) tunnel devices have been proposed for high speed applications such as hot electron transistors, IR detectors, optical rectennas for IR energy harvesting, and backplanes for LCDs. The majority of these applications require highly asymmetric and non-linear current versus voltage (I-V) behavior at low applied voltages and ultra-high frequencies....
Surface characterization of materials is widely utilized over a range of disciplines and essential to the development of new materials, technology, or processes. Metal oxide nanoclusters have shown promise as potential new generation photoresist materials for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) nanolithography. Organotin clusters have been proposed as potential candidates for resist...
Recent changes in legislation restricting lead content in waste streams produced during electronics manufacturing have inspired a strong push to develop alternative lead-free materials systems for piezoelectric applications. One lead-free piezoelectric material system, (100-X)Bi₀.₅Na₀.₅TiO₃-XBi₀.₅K₀.₅TiO₃ (BNKT), has shown promising properties in bulk research, however, difficulties have arisen in the development of...
In this dissertation, the spectroscopic properties and thermodynamic stability of a class of materials known as metal oxo and hydroxo clusters are studied. In aqueous solutions, many metals can aggregate into discrete clusters of metals bridged by oxo or hydroxo ligands. These clusters are of particular interest to us for...
The electrical stability of amorphous indium-gallium-zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thinfilmtransistors (TFTs) is investigated for flat-panel display applications. Althoughproducts incorporating a-IGZO TFT backplanes are already commercially available,e.g., iMac with 5K retina display, technical challenges need to be addressed for nextgenerationapplications, e.g., active-matrix organic light-emitting diode displays.Device stability is one crucial issue. The...
Amorphous metal thin films lack the grain boundaries and dislocations present in
crystalline metal films. As a result, amorphous metal films can be more mechanically robust, atomically smooth, and more resistant to chemical attack than crystalline metals. However, amorphous metals are meta-stable and subject to crystallization upon heating, thus limiting...
The common cherrylaurel (Prunus laurocerasus) and Portuguese cherrylaurel (P. lusitanica) are economically important landscape shrubs across the United States. To gain a better understanding of physiology and morphology in these higher level polyploids (P. lusitanica, 2n = 8x; P. laurocerasus, 2n =22x), a variety of breeding experiments were performed. The...
The subject of this PhD thesis is part of a research domain of great present interest in new semiconductor materials for photovoltaic and thermoelectric applications. This domain contains the elaboration and the study of both Cu-based chalcogenides bulk and thin-film samples, driven by materials design principles.
One of the most...
Amorphous metal thin films (AMTFs) are of potential use for metal-insulator-metal (MIM) tunnel diode applications due to their ultra-smooth surfaces, a consequence of their amorphous microstructure. The objective of this thesis is to design a thermally-stable AMTF capable of maintaining MIM tunnel diode performance after a post-deposition anneal in excess...
A transient code (TFETC) for calculating the temperature
distribution throughout the radial and axial positions of a
thermionic fuel element (TFE) has been successfully developed.
It accommodates the variations of temperatures, thermal power,
electrical power, voltage, and current density throughout the
TFE as a function of time as well as...