Bioinspired synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles (open access)

Bioinspired synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles

The synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles has long been an area of active research. Magnetic nanoparticles can be used in a wide variety of applications such as magnetic inks, magnetic memory devices, drug delivery, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents, and pathogen detection in foods. In applications such as MRI, particle uniformity is particularly crucial, as is the magnetic response of the particles. Uniform magnetic particles with good magnetic properties are therefore required. One particularly effective technique for synthesizing nanoparticles involves biomineralization, which is a naturally occurring process that can produce highly complex nanostructures. Also, the technique involves mild conditions (ambient temperature and close to neutral pH) that make this approach suitable for a wide variety of materials. The term 'bioinspired' is important because biomineralization research is inspired by the naturally occurring process, which occurs in certain microorganisms called 'magnetotactic bacteria'. Magnetotactic bacteria use biomineralization proteins to produce magnetite crystals having very good uniformity in size and morphology. The bacteria use these magnetic particles to navigate according to external magnetic fields. Because these bacteria synthesize high quality crystals, research has focused on imitating aspects of this biomineralization in vitro. In particular, a biomineralization iron-binding protein found in a certain species of …
Date: May 26, 2009
Creator: David, Anand
System: The UNT Digital Library
Development of extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray multilayer optics for scientific studies with femtosecond/attosecond sources (open access)

Development of extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray multilayer optics for scientific studies with femtosecond/attosecond sources

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 …
Date: May 21, 2009
Creator: Aquila, Andrew Lee
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Voltage Controlled Oscillator for a Phase-Locked Loop Frequency Synthesizer in a Silicon-on-Sapphire Process (open access)

A Voltage Controlled Oscillator for a Phase-Locked Loop Frequency Synthesizer in a Silicon-on-Sapphire Process

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 …
Date: May 21, 2009
Creator: Garrison, Sean
System: The UNT Digital Library
Building Structural Complexity in Semiconductor Nanocrystals through Chemical Transformations (open access)

Building Structural Complexity in Semiconductor Nanocrystals through Chemical Transformations

Methods are presented for synthesizing nanocrystal heterostructures comprised of two semiconductor materials epitaxially attached within individual nanostructures. The chemical transformation of cation exchange, where the cations within the lattice of an ionic nanocrystal are replaced with a different metal ion species, is used to alter the chemical composition at specific regions ofa nanocrystal. Partial cation exchange was performed in cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanorods of well-defined size and shape to examine the spatial organization of materials within the resulting nanocrystal heterostructures. The selectivity for cation exchange to take place at different facets of the nanocrystal plays an important role in determining the resulting morphology of the binary heterostructure. The exchange of copper (I) (Cu+) cations in CdS nanorods occurs preferentially at the ends of the nanorods. Theoretical modeling of epitaxial attachments between different facets of CdS and Cu2S indicate that the selectivity for cation exchange at the ends of the nanorods is a result of the low formation energy of the interfaces produced. During silver (I) (Ag+) cation exchange in CdS nanorods, non-selective nucleation of silver sulfide (Ag2S), followed by partial phase segregation leads to significant changes in the spatial arrangement of CdS and Ag2S regions at the exchange reaction proceeds …
Date: May 20, 2009
Creator: Sadtler, Bryce F.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Extreme ultraviolet lithography: A few more pieces of the puzzle (open access)

Extreme ultraviolet lithography: A few more pieces of the puzzle

The work described in this dissertation has improved three essential components of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography: exposure tools, photoresist, and metrology. Exposure tools. A field-averaging illumination stage is presented that enables nonuniform, high-coherence sources to be used in applications where highly uniform illumination is required. In an EUV implementation, it is shown that the illuminator achieves a 6.5% peak-to-valley intensity variation across the entire design field of view. In addition, a design for a stand-alone EUV printing tool capable of delivering 15 nm half-pitch sinusoidal fringes with available sources, gratings and nano-positioning stages is presented. It is shown that the proposed design delivers a near zero line-edge-rougness (LER) aerial image, something extremely attractive for the application of resist testing. Photoresist. Two new methods of quantifying the deprotection blur of EUV photoresists are described and experimentally demonstrated. The deprotection blur, LER, and sensitivity parameters of several EUV photoresists are quantified simultaneously as base weight percent, photoacid generator (PAG) weight percent, and post-exposure bake (PEB) temperature are varied. Two surprising results are found: (1) changing base weight percent does not significantly affect the deprotection blur of EUV photoresist, and (2) increasing PAG weight percent can simultaneously reduce LER and E-size in EUV …
Date: May 20, 2009
Creator: Anderson, Christopher N.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ultrafast Magnetization Dynamics of SrRuO3 Thin Films (open access)

Ultrafast Magnetization Dynamics of SrRuO3 Thin Films

Itinerant ferromagnet SrRuO3 has drawn interest from physicists due to its unusual transport and magnetic properties as well as from engineers due to its low resistivity and good lattice-matching to other oxide materials. The exact electronic structure remains a mystery, as well as details of the interactions between magnetic and electron transport properties. This thesis describes the use of time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy to study the ferromagnetic resonance of SrRuO3 thin films, where the ferromagnetic resonance is initiated by a sudden change in the easy axis direction in response to a pump pulse. The rotation of the easy axis is induced by laser heating, taking advantage of a temperature-dependent easy axis direction in SrRuO3 thin films. By measuring the change in temperature of the magnetic system in response to the laser pulse, we find that the specific heat is dominated by magnons up to unusually high temperature, ~;;100 K, and thermal diffusion is limited by a boundary resistance between the film and the substrate that is not consistent with standard phonon reflection and scattering models. We observe a high FMR frequency, 250 GHz, and large Gilbert damping parameter, alpha ~;; 1, consistent with strong spin-orbit coupling. We observe a time-dependent …
Date: May 19, 2009
Creator: Langner, Matthew C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Dynamic magnetic susceptibility of systems with long-range magnetic order (open access)

Dynamic magnetic susceptibility of systems with long-range magnetic order

The utility of the TDR as an instrument in the study of magnetically ordered materials has been expanded beyond the simple demonstration purposes. Results of static applied magnetic field dependent measurements of the dynamic magnetic susceptibility, ?, of various ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AFM) materials showing a range of transition temperatures (1-800 K) are presented. Data was collected primarily with a tunnel diode resonator (TDR) at different radio-frequencies ({approx}10-30 MHz). In the vicinity of TC local moment ferromagnets show a very sharp, narrow peak in ? which is suppressed in amplitude and shifted to higher temperatures as the static bias field is increased. Unexpectedly, critical scaling analysis fails for these data. It is seen that these data are frequency dependent, however there is no simple method whereby measurement frequency can be changed in a controllable fashion. In contrast, itinerant ferromagnets show a broad maximum in ? well below TC which is suppressed and shifts to lower temperatures as the dc bias field is increased. The data on itinerant ferromagnets is fitted to a semi-phenomenological model that suggests the sample response is dominated by the uncompensated minority spins in the conduction band. Concluding remarks suggest possible scenarios to achieve frequency resolved …
Date: May 15, 2009
Creator: Vannette, Matthew Dano
System: The UNT Digital Library
Indium Growth and Island Height Control on Si Submonolayer Phases (open access)

Indium Growth and Island Height Control on Si Submonolayer Phases

Nanotechnology refers any technique that involves about object with nanoscale (10{sup -9} m) or even smaller. It has become more and more important in recently years and has changed our world dramatically. Most of modern electronic devices today should thanks to the miniaturizing driven by development of nanotechnology. Recent years, more and more governments are investing huge amount of money in research related to nanotechnology. There are two major reasons that nanostructure is so fascinate. The first one is the miniaturizing. It is obvious that if we can make products smaller without losing the features, we can save the cost and increase the performance dramatically. For an example, the first computer in the world, ENIAC, which occupied several rooms, is less powerful than the cheapest calculator today. Today's chips with sizes of less than half an inch contain millions of basic units. All these should thank to the development of nanotechnology. The other reason is that when we come to nanoscale, there are many new effects due to the quantum effect which can't be found in large systems. For an example, quantum dots (QDs) are systems which sizes are below 1{micro}m(10{sup -6}m) and restricted in three dimensions. There are many …
Date: May 9, 2009
Creator: Chen, Jizhou
System: The UNT Digital Library
TEMPORARILY ALLOYING TITANIUM TO FACILITATE FRICTION STIR WELDING (open access)

TEMPORARILY ALLOYING TITANIUM TO FACILITATE FRICTION STIR WELDING

While historically hydrogen has been considered an impurity in titanium, when used as a temporary alloying agent it promotes beneficial changes to material properties that increase the hot-workability of the metal. This technique known as thermohydrogen processing was used to temporarily alloy hydrogen with commercially pure titanium sheet as a means of facilitating the friction stir welding process. Specific alloying parameters were developed to increase the overall hydrogen content of the titanium sheet ranging from commercially pure to 30 atomic percent. Each sheet was evaluated to determine the effect of the hydrogen content on process loads and tool deformation during the plunge phase of the friction stir welding process. Two materials, H-13 tool steel and pure tungsten, were used to fabricate friction stir welding tools that were plunged into each of the thermohydrogen processed titanium sheets. Tool wear was characterized and variations in machine loads were quantified for each tool material and weld metal combination. Thermohydrogen processing was shown to beneficially lower plunge forces and stabilize machine torques at specific hydrogen concentrations. The resulting effects of hydrogen addition to titanium metal undergoing the friction stir welding process are compared with modifications in titanium properties documented in modern literature. Such comparative …
Date: May 6, 2009
Creator: Hovanski, Yuri
System: The UNT Digital Library
Discovery of single top quark production (open access)

Discovery of single top quark production

The top quark is by far the heaviest known fundamental particle with a mass nearing that of a gold atom. Because of this strikingly high mass, the top quark has several unique properties and might play an important role in electroweak symmetry breaking - the mechanism that gives all elementary particles mass. Creating top quarks requires access to very high energy collisions, and at present only the Tevatron collider at Fermilab is capable of reaching these energies. Until now, top quarks have only been observed produced in pairs via the strong interaction. At hadron colliders, it should also be possible to produce single top quarks via the electroweak interaction. Studies of single top quark production provide opportunities to measure the top quark spin, how top quarks mix with other quarks, and to look for new physics beyond the standard model. Because of these interesting properties, scientists have been looking for single top quarks for more than 15 years. This thesis presents the first discovery of single top quark production. An analysis is performed using 2.3 fb{sup -1} of data recorded by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider at centre-of-mass energy {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. Boosted decision trees are …
Date: May 1, 2009
Creator: Gillberg, Dag
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of electron neutrino appearance with the MINOS experiment (open access)

Measurement of electron neutrino appearance with the MINOS experiment

MINOS is a long-baseline two-detector neutrino oscillation experiment that uses a high intensity muon neutrino beam to investigate the phenomena of neutrino oscillations. By measuring the neutrino interactions in a detector near the neutrino source and again 735 km away from the production site, it is possible to probe the parameters governing neutrino oscillation. The majority of the {nu}{sub {mu}} oscillate to {nu}{sub {tau}} but a small fraction may oscillate instead to {nu}{sub e}. This thesis presents a measurement of the {nu}{sub e} appearance rate in the MINOS far detector using the first two years of exposure. Methods for constraining the far detector backgrounds using the near detector measurements is discussed and a technique for estimating the uncertainty on the background and signal selection are developed. A 1.6{sigma} excess over the expected background rate is found providing a hint of {nu}{sub e} appearance.
Date: May 1, 2009
Creator: Boehm, Joshua Adam Alpern & U., /Harvard
System: The UNT Digital Library
Search for Charged Massive Long-Lived Particles Using the D0 Detector (open access)

Search for Charged Massive Long-Lived Particles Using the D0 Detector

A search for charged massive stable particles has been performed with the D0 detector using 1.1 fb{sup -1} of data. The speed of the particle has been calculated based on the time-of-flight and position information in the muon system. The present research is limited to direct pair-production of the charged massive long-lived particles. We do not consider CMSPs that result from the cascade decays of heavier particles. In this analysis, the exact values of the model parameters of the entire supersymmetric particle mass spectrum, relevant for cascade decays, are not important. We found no evidence of the signal. 95% CL cross-section upper limits have been set on the pair-productions of the stable scaler tau lepton, the gaugino-like charginos, and the higgsino-like charginos. The upper cross section limits vary from 0.31 pb to 0.04 pb, for stau masses in the range between 60 GeV and 300 GeV. We use the nominal value of the theoretical cross section to set limits on the mass of the pair produced charginos. We exclude the pair-produced stable gaugino-like charginos with mass below 206 GeV, and higgsino-like charginos below 171 GeV, respectively. Although the present sensitivity is insufficient to test the model of the pair produced …
Date: May 1, 2009
Creator: Xie, Yunhe & U., /Brown
System: The UNT Digital Library
Search for the Rare Decay $K_L \to \pi^0 \pi^0 \mu^+ \mu^-$ (open access)

Search for the Rare Decay $K_L \to \pi^0 \pi^0 \mu^+ \mu^-$

This thesis describes the search for K<sub>L</sub> → π<sup>0</sup>π<sup>0</sup>μ<sup>+</sup>μ<sup>-</sup>, which was conducted using data collected by the KTeV Experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. Although this decay mode is possible within the Standard Model, it is limited to a very narrow band of phase space. The HyperCP Experiment has recently observed three Σ<sup>+</sup> → pμ<sup>+</sup>μ<sup>-</sup> events within a narrow dimuon mass range of 213.8 MeV/c<sup>2</sup> to 214.8 MeV/c<sup>2</sup>. This suggests that the process could occur via a neutral intermediary particle, Σ<sup>+</sup> → pX<sup>0</sup> → pμ<sup>+</sup>μ<sup>-</sup>, with an X<sup>0</sup> mass of 214.3 MeV/c<sup>2</sup> ± 0.5 MeV/c<sup>2</sup> . Since the X<sup>0</sup> has a light mass and a low interaction probability, then it is most likely a new neutral boson that exists beyond the Standard Model. Recent theoretical predictions suggest that the decay mode K<sub>L</sub> → π<sup>0</sup>π<sup>0</sup>μ<sup>+</sup>μ<sup>-</sup> can also occur via the aforementioned neutral boson: K<sub>L</sub> → π<sup>0</sup>π<sup>0</sup>X<sup>0</sup>→ π<sup>0</sup>π<sup>0</sup>μ<sup>+</sup>μ<sup>-</sup>. Therefore, in addition to a Standard Model measurement, the search for K<sub>L</sub> → π<sup>0</sup>π<sup>0</sup>μ<sup>+</sup>μ<sup>-</sup> is also carried out in an effort to address the viability of X<sup>0</sup> in explaining the HyperCP phenomena. Measurement of the upper limits presented in this thesis were performed using blind analysis techniques. The upper limit of …
Date: May 1, 2009
Creator: Phillips, David Graham
System: The UNT Digital Library
Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson in the Missing Transverse Energy and b-jet signature in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV (open access)

Search for the Standard Model Higgs Boson in the Missing Transverse Energy and b-jet signature in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV

We report on the results of a search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a W or Z boson in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV recorded by the CDF II experiment at the Tevatron in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2.1 fb{sup -1}. We consider events having no identified charged leptons, a large imbalance in transverse momentum, and two or three jets where at least one jet contains a secondary vertex consistent with the decay of a b hadron. The main backgrounds are modeled with innovative techniques using data. The sensitivity of the search is optimized using multivariate discriminant techniques. We find good agreement between data and the standard model predictions. We place 95% confidence level upper limits on production cross section times branching ratio for several Higgs boson masses ranging from 110 GeV=c{sup 2} to 150 GeV=c{sup 2}. For a mass of 115 GeV=c{sup 2} the observed (expected) limit is 6.9 (5.6) times the standard model prediction.
Date: May 1, 2009
Creator: Apresyan, Artur
System: The UNT Digital Library
Intense Ion Beam for Warm Dense Matter Physics (open access)

Intense Ion Beam for Warm Dense Matter Physics

The Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is exploring the physical limits of compression and focusing of ion beams for heating material to warm dense matter (WDM) and fusion ignition conditions. The NDCX is a beam transport experiment with several components at a scale comparable to an inertial fusion energy driver. The NDCX is an accelerator which consists of a low-emittance ion source, high-current injector, solenoid matching section, induction bunching module, beam neutralization section, and final focusing system. The principal objectives of the experiment are to control the beam envelope, demonstrate effective neutralization of the beam space-charge, control the velocity tilt on the beam, and understand defocusing effects, field imperfections, and limitations on peak intensity such as emittance and aberrations. Target heating experiments with space-charge dominated ion beams require simultaneous longitudinal bunching and transverse focusing. A four-solenoid lattice is used to tune the beam envelope to the necessary focusing conditions before entering the induction bunching module. The induction bunching module provides a head-to-tail velocity ramp necessary to achieve peak axial compression at the desired focal plane. Downstream of the induction gap a plasma column neutralizes the beam space charge so only emittance limits the focused beam …
Date: May 23, 2008
Creator: Coleman, Joshua Eugene
System: The UNT Digital Library
Quantum Dynamical Behaviour in Complex Systems - A Semiclassical Approach (open access)

Quantum Dynamical Behaviour in Complex Systems - A Semiclassical Approach

One of the biggest challenges in Chemical Dynamics is describing the behavior of complex systems accurately. Classical MD simulations have evolved to a point where calculations involving thousands of atoms are routinely carried out. Capturing coherence, tunneling and other such quantum effects for these systems, however, has proven considerably harder. Semiclassical methods such as the Initial Value Representation (SC-IVR) provide a practical way to include quantum effects while still utilizing only classical trajectory information. For smaller systems, this method has been proven to be most effective, encouraging the hope that it can be extended to deal with a large number of degrees of freedom. Several variations upon the original idea of the SCIVR have been developed to help make these larger calculations more tractable; these range from the simplest, classical limit form, the Linearized IVR (LSC-IVR) to the quantum limit form, the Exact Forward-Backward version (EFB-IVR). In this thesis a method to tune between these limits is described which allows us to choose exactly which degrees of freedom we wish to treat in a more quantum mechanical fashion and to what extent. This formulation is called the Tuning IVR (TIVR). We further describe methodology being developed to evaluate the prefactor …
Date: May 22, 2008
Creator: Gliebe, Cheryn E & Ananth, Nandini
System: The UNT Digital Library
Inclusive Rates and Spectra of the Lambda, Cascade, and Omega Hyperons atBaBar (open access)

Inclusive Rates and Spectra of the Lambda, Cascade, and Omega Hyperons atBaBar

We employ Runs 1-4 off-peak data sample (about 21.5 fb{sup -1}) to produce the current world-best spectra and production rates measurements for three strangely-flavored baryons: the {Lambda} hyperon, the cascade hyperon, and the {Omega} hyperon. These improved measurements shall enable theoretical and phenomelogical workers to generate more realistic models for the hadronization process, currently one of the unresolved problem areas in the standard model of particle physics. This analysis was conducted using codes from release 16 series. We report the production rate at 10.54 GeV for the {Lambda} as 0.0900 {+-} 0.0006(stat.) {+-} 0.0039(sys.) per hadronic event. Our measured production rate at the same energy for the cascade hyperon is 0.00562 {+-} 0.00013(stat.) {+-} 0.00045(sys.) per hadronic event, while that for the {Omega} hyperon is 0.00027 {+-} 0.00004(stat.) {+-} 0.0008(sys.) per hadronic event. The spectral measurements for the respective particles also constitute current world-best measurements.
Date: May 19, 2008
Creator: Chien, Andrew L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry for direct profiling and imaging of small molecules from raw biological materials (open access)

Laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry for direct profiling and imaging of small molecules from raw biological materials

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization(MALDI) mass spectrometry(MS) has been widely used for analysis of biological molecules, especially macromolecules such as proteins. However, MALDI MS has a problem in small molecule (less than 1 kDa) analysis because of the signal saturation by organic matrixes in the low mass region. In imaging MS (IMS), inhomogeneous surface formation due to the co-crystallization process by organic MALDI matrixes limits the spatial resolution of the mass spectral image. Therefore, to make laser desorption/ionization (LDI) MS more suitable for mass spectral profiling and imaging of small molecules directly from raw biological tissues, LDI MS protocols with various alternative assisting materials were developed and applied to many biological systems of interest. Colloidal graphite was used as a matrix for IMS of small molecules for the first time and methodologies for analyses of small metabolites in rat brain tissues, fruits, and plant tissues were developed. With rat brain tissues, the signal enhancement for cerebroside species by colloidal graphite was observed and images of cerebrosides were successfully generated by IMS. In addition, separation of isobaric lipid ions was performed by imaging tandem MS. Directly from Arabidopsis flowers, flavonoids were successfully profiled and heterogeneous distribution of flavonoids in petals was observed for …
Date: May 15, 2008
Creator: Cha, Sangwon
System: The UNT Digital Library
Two-photon Photoemission of Organic Semiconductor Molecules on Ag(111) (open access)

Two-photon Photoemission of Organic Semiconductor Molecules on Ag(111)

Angle- and time-resolved two-photon photoemission (2PPE) was used to study systems of organic semiconductors on Ag(111). The 2PPE studies focused on electronic behavior specific to interfaces and ultrathin films. Electron time dynamics and band dispersions were characterized for ultrathin films of a prototypical n-type planar aromatic hydrocarbon, PTCDA, and representatives from a family of p-type oligothiophenes.In PTCDA, electronic behavior was correlated with film morphology and growth modes. Within a fewmonolayers of the interface, image potential states and a LUMO+1 state were detected. The degree to which the LUMO+1 state exhibited a band mass less than a free electron mass depended on the crystallinity of the layer. Similarly, image potential states were measured to have free electron-like effective masses on ordered surfaces, and the effective masses increased with disorder within the thin film. Electron lifetimes were correlated with film growth modes, such that the lifetimes of electrons excited into systems created by layer-by-layer, amorphous film growth increased by orders of magnitude by only a few monolayers from the surface. Conversely, the decay dynamics of electrons in Stranski-Krastanov systems were limited by interaction with the exposed wetting layer, which limited the barrier to decay back into the metal.Oligothiophenes including monothiophene, quaterthiophene, and …
Date: May 15, 2008
Creator: Yang, Aram & Yang, Aram
System: The UNT Digital Library
Odd-Z Transactinide Compound Nucleus Reactions Including the Discovery of 260Bh (open access)

Odd-Z Transactinide Compound Nucleus Reactions Including the Discovery of 260Bh

Several reactions producing odd-Z transactinide compound nuclei were studiedwith the 88-Inch Cyclotron and the Berkeley Gas-Filled Separator at the LawrenceBerkeley National Laboratory. The goal was to produce the same compound nucleus ator near the same excitation energy with similar values of angular momentum via differentnuclear reactions. In doing so, it can be determined if there is a preference in entrancechannel, because under these experimental conditions the survival portion of Swiatecki, Siwek-Wilcznska, and Wilczynski&#39;s&quot;Fusion By Diffusion&quot; model is nearly identical forthe two reactions. Additionally, because the same compound nucleus is produced, theexit channel is the same. Four compound nuclei were examined in this study: 258Db, 262Bh, 266Mt, and 272Rg. These nuclei were produced by using very similar heavy-ion induced-fusion reactions which differ only by one proton in the projectile or target nucleus (e.g.: 50Ti + 209Bi vs. 51V + 208Pb). Peak 1n exit channel cross sections were determined for each reaction in each pair, and three of the four pairs&#39; cross sections were identical within statistical uncertainties. This indicates there is not an obvious preference of entrancechannel in these paired reactions. Charge equilibration immediately prior to fusionleading to a decreased fusion barrier is the likely cause of this phenomenon. In addition …
Date: May 14, 2008
Creator: Nelson, Sarah L & Nelson, Sarah L
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Component-Based Application for GAMESS (open access)

The Component-Based Application for GAMESS

GAMESS, a quantum chetnistry program for electronic structure calculations, has been freely shared by high-performance application scientists for over twenty years. It provides a rich set of functionalities and can be run on a variety of parallel platforms through a distributed data interface. While a chemistry computation is sophisticated and hard to develop, the resource sharing among different chemistry packages will accelerate the development of new computations and encourage the cooperation of scientists from universities and laboratories. Common Component Architecture (CCA) offers an enviromnent that allows scientific packages to dynamically interact with each other through components, which enable dynamic coupling of GAMESS with other chetnistry packages, such as MPQC and NWChem. Conceptually, a cotnputation can be constructed with "plug-and-play" components from scientific packages and require more than componentizing functions/subroutines of interest, especially for large-scale scientific packages with a long development history. In this research, we present our efforts to construct cotnponents for GAMESS that conform to the CCA specification. The goal is to enable the fine-grained interoperability between three quantum chemistry programs, GAMESS, MPQC and NWChem, via components. We focus on one of the three packages, GAMESS; delineate the structure of GAMESS computations, followed by our approaches to its component …
Date: May 1, 2008
Creator: Peng, Fang
System: The UNT Digital Library
Hadronic Production of psi(2S) Cross section and Polarization (open access)

Hadronic Production of psi(2S) Cross section and Polarization

The hadronic production cross section and the polarization of {psi}(2S) meson are measured by using the data from p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. The datasets used correspond to integrated luminosity of 1.1 fb{sup -1} and 800 pb{sup -1}, respectively. The decay {psi}(2S) {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -} is used to reconstruct {psi}(2S) mesons in the rapidity range |y({psi}(2S))| &lt; 0.6. The coverage of the p{sub T} range is 2.0 GeV/c {le} p{sub T} ({psi}(2S)) &lt; 30 GeV/c for the cross section analysis and pT {ge} 5 GeV/c for the polarization analysis. For events with p{sub T} ({psi}(2S)) &gt; 2 GeV/c the integrated inclusive cross section multiplied by the branching ratio for dimuon decay is 3.17 {+-} 0.04 {+-} 0.28 nb . This result agrees with the CDF Run I measurement considering the increased center-of-mass energy from 1.8 TeV to 1.96 TeV. The polarization of the promptly produced {psi}(2S) mesons is found to be increasingly longitudinal as p{sub T} increases from 5 GeV/c to 30 GeV/c. The result is compared to contemporary theory models.
Date: May 1, 2008
Creator: Chung, Kwangzoo
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of electroweak single top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV (open access)

Measurement of electroweak single top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at 1.96 TeV

The top quark is an extremely massive fundamental particle that is predominantly produced in pairs at particle collider experiments. The Standard Model of particle physics predicts that top quarks can also be produced singly by the electroweak force; however, this process is more difficult to detect because it occurs at a smaller rate and is more difficult to distinguish from background processes. The cross section of this process is related to the Cabbibo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element |V{sub tb}|, and measurement of the single top quark production cross section is currently the only method to directly measure this quantity without assuming the number of generations of fermions. This thesis describes a measurement of the cross section of electroweak single top quark production in proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. This analysis uses 2.2 fb{sup -1} of integrated luminosity recorded by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. The search is performed using a matrix element method which calculates the differential cross section for each event for several signal and background hypotheses. These numbers are combined into a single discriminant and used to construct templates from Monte Carlo simulation. A maximum likelihood fit to the data distribution gives a measurement of the …
Date: May 1, 2008
Creator: Dong, Peter Joseph
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of the production rate of the charm jet recoiling against the W boson using the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider (open access)

Measurement of the production rate of the charm jet recoiling against the W boson using the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider

This dissertation describes a measurement of the rate of associated production of the W boson with the charm jet in the proton and anti-proton collisions at the center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The measurement has direct sensitivity to the strange quark content inside the proton. A direct measurement of the momentum distribution of the strange quark inside the proton is essential for a reliable calculation of new physics signal as well as the background processes at the collider experiments. The identification of events containing a W boson and a charm jet is based on the leptonic decays of the W boson together with a tagging technique for the charm jet identification based on the semileptonic decay of the charm quark into the muon. The charm jet recoiling against the W boson must have a minimum transverse momentum of 20 GeV and an absolute value of pseudorapidity less than 2.5. This measurement utilizes the data collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Collider. The measured rate of the charm jet production in association with the W boson in the inclusive jet production with the W boson is 0.074 {+-} 0.023, which is in agreement with …
Date: May 1, 2008
Creator: Ahsan, Mahsana & U., /Kansas State
System: The UNT Digital Library