Plasmonic nanostructures can confine light at their surface in the form of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) or localized surface plasmons (LSPs) depending on their geometry. SPPs are excited on nano- and micropatterned surfaces, where the typical feature size is on the order of the wavelength of light. LSPs, on the...
I present research in systems of biomedical relevance consisting of agents near or com- prising surfaces using computational approaches. The research topics include formation of bacterial biofilms, behavior of charged species near stacked, like-charged lamellae, and the the conformational behavior of lamellae with strong self-attraction.
In chapter 2, I present...
The scope of this thesis extends to the study of surface structures and electronic properties in a number of complex oxides. The c(6x2) surface reconstruction on SrTiO3 (001) was solved using a combination of plan view transmission electron microscopy imaging, atomic resolution secondary electron imaging, and density functional theory calculations....
Freeze casting is a technique for processing porous materials that has drawn significant attention for its effectiveness in producing a variety of tailorable pore structures for ceramics, metals, and polymers. With freeze casting, pores are generated based on a solidification process where ice crystals act as a sacrificial template which...
Peptide Amphiphile (PA) molecules developed in the author's laboratory and others have shown great versatility in creating self-assembled nanostructures with built-in biological and/or chemical functionalities. Their applications in spinal cord injury repair, angiogenesis, promoting cell adhesion and templating inorganic materials have also been well studied. Complementing previous compositional studies, where...
Semiconducting nanoelectronic materials, including single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) possess interesting optoelectronic properties that could enable next-generation electronics, sensing technologies, and biomedicine. In this thesis, biomolecule-assisted dispersion and assembly of these nanomaterials are explored for human toxicity, environmental hazard potential, and applications in supramolecular hydrogels.
Liquid-based...