External manipulation of soft matter underlies a multitude of advancements in far-from-equilibrium materials. The application of magnetic fields has proven tremendouslybeneficial due to its ability to impart rapid and precise changes throughout soft magnetic systems. This has led to scientists and engineers to develop composite materials that take advantage of...
X-ray imaging at nano and micro-scale is of great importance for the material science and defense industry. Large penetration depth and low wavelength of x-rays offer an important potential to image objects at high resolution and in a non-invasive process. While the ever-growing community is pursuing novel applications and looking...
Over 10 billion tons of concrete are produced for the construction industry every year, making concrete the second most used substance on Earth, only surpassed by water. With such high importance as a building material, there is significant need for the ability to accurately model concrete behavior. As a quasi-brittle...
Engineering responses of soft materials at hierarchical time and length scales is of great interest to both fundamental science and technological applications. In recent years, the hybridization between emerging soft condense matters and conventional hard condense matters keeps enriching the materials library of humankind and opens another largely-uncharted venue for...
At its core, the purpose of microscopy is to make objects and their underlying structures visible under high magnification. With the remarkable progress of electron microscopy, the sub-micron “high” magnification of light microscopy has been completely refashioned to encompass subatomic length scales. Unfortunately, higher-magnification does little to negate existing interpretability...
As fourth-generation synchrotron x-ray sources start to come online, they bring with them the promise of increased imaging speed and resolution for current imaging modalities, while enabling entirely new ones. Employing the increased brightness at hard x-ray energies begins with having efficient focusing optics in place. Zone plates are popular...
Part I - Experimental Studies of Spin Waves in a Micrometer-Thick Yttrium Iron Garnet filmAn investigation of spin wave dispersion in a micrometer-thick ferrimagnetic yttrium iron garnet (YIG) film has been conducted in various regimes. In the linear excitation regime, the dispersion of spin waves was characterized in an yttrium...
Manufacturing processes are known for their intricacies in changing material shapes and properties. New generations of manufacturing technologies, known as flexible manufacturing, are moving toward design freedom, which allows producing parts with optimized geometries and high customizations at an affordable cost even for low-volume productions. Two prominent flexible manufacturing processes...
Normal gastroesophageal motilty is important to live a comfortable and healthy life. Motility disorders result in impaired transport of ingested food which can lead to extreme discomfort and severe damage to the walls of the esophagus. Significant work has been done to study gastroesophageal motility using advanced diagnostic tools such...
Thermoelectric materials have attracted widespread attention in recent decades because of their ability to directly convert thermal energy into electrical energy. Given that waste heat is the primary source of lost energy in the world, the implications of developing better thermoelectric materials are both immediate and far-reaching. Admittedly, large progress...
