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Although we know that many supernovae are aspherical, the exact nature of their geometry is undetermined. Because all the supernovae we observe are too distant to be resolved, the ejecta structure can't be directly imaged, and asymmetry must be inferred from signatures in the spectral features and polarization of the supernova light. The empirical interpretation of this data, however, is rather limited--to learn more about the detailed supernova geometry, theoretical modeling must been undertaken. One expects the geometry to be closely tied to the explosion mechanism and the progenitor star system, both of which are still under debate. Studying the 3-dimensional structure of supernovae should therefore provide new break throughs in our understanding. The goal of this thesis is to advance new techniques for calculating radiative transfer in 3-dimensional expanding atmospheres, and use them to study the flux and polarization signatures of aspherical supernovae. We develop a 3-D Monte Carlo transfer code and use it to directly fit recent spectropolarimetric observations, as well as calculate the observable properties of detailed multi-dimensional hydrodynamical explosion simulations. While previous theoretical efforts have been restricted to ellipsoidal models, we study several more complicated configurations that are tied to specific physical scenarios. We explore clumpy …

The development of multilayer optics for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation has led to advancements in many areas of science and technology, including materials studies, EUV lithography, water window microscopy, plasma imaging, and orbiting solar physics imaging. Recent developments in femtosecond and attosecond EUV pulse generation from sources such as high harmonic generation lasers, combined with the elemental and chemical specificity provided by EUV radiation, are opening new opportunities to study fundamental dynamic processes in materials. Critical to these efforts is the design and fabrication of multilayer optics to transport, focus, shape and image these ultra-fast pulses This thesis describes the design, fabrication, characterization, and application of multilayer optics for EUV femtosecond and attosecond scientific studies. Multilayer mirrors for bandwidth control, pulse shaping and compression, tri-material multilayers, and multilayers for polarization control are described. Characterization of multilayer optics, including measurement of material optical constants, reflectivity of multilayer mirrors, and metrology of reflected phases of the multilayer, which is critical to maintaining pulse size and shape, were performed. Two applications of these multilayer mirrors are detailed in the thesis. In the first application, broad bandwidth multilayers were used to characterize and measure sub-100 attosecond pulses from a high harmonic generation source and …

Engineers from a government-owned engineering and manufacturing facility were contracted by government-owned research laboratory to design and build an S-band telemetry transmitter using Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC) technology packaged in a Low-Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) Multi-Chip Module. The integrated circuit technology chosen for the Phase-Locked Loop Frequency Synthesizer portion of the telemetry transmitter was a 0.25 um CMOS process that utilizes a sapphire substrate and is fabricated by Peregrine Semiconductor corporation. This thesis work details the design of the Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) portion of the PLL frequency synthesizer and constitutes an fully integrated VCO core circuit and a high-isolation buffer amplifier. The high-isolation buffer amplifier was designed to provide 16 dB of gain for 2200-3495 MHz as well as 60 dB of isolation for the oscillator core to provide immunity to frequency pulling due to RF load mismatch. Actual measurements of the amplifier gain and isolation showed the gain was approximately 5 dB lower than the simulated gain when all bond-wire and test substrate parasitics were taken into account. The isolation measurements were shown to be 28 dB at the high end of the frequency band but the measurement was more than likely compromised due to the aforementioned …