The measurement of weak adhesive energies has previously been difficult to obtain. To measure these energies, I designed a technique that uses the combined sensitivities of both a quartz crystal resonator and the inflation of an elastomeric polymer membrane. The surfaces of the quartz crystal and/or the membrane are modified...
The current trend of ceramic nanotechnology has motivated an ever-increasing need to achieve exquisite control over size, shape, and spatial confinement for functional oxide architectures, in an equivalent manner demonstrated for semiconductors. However, the unique nature of ceramics has posed major challenges for most traditional nanofabrication technologies, putting the development...
Oxide surface structures play a key role in many technological processes, including catalysis, thin film growth, and layered structures, and a thorough understanding of surface structures and surface structure dynamics is required in order to better engineer materials systems for these processes. This research works towards understanding these fundamental principles...
Subsolidus phase relationships within the ZnO-In<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>-SnO<sub>2</sub> system at 1275 <sup>o</sup>C were established by conventional solid state reaction methods. No new compounds or structures were observed within the ternary diagram. Equilibrium in the ZnO-corner, between the homologous compounds and the spinel phase, was found difficult to achieve. This problem was overcome...
A multicomponent bimodal poly(vinyl acetate) (PVAc) polymer composite has been scientifically designed to increase biaxial plastic flow stabilization for the achievement of large biaxial deformations. For this, a systems-based approach was used for the computational materials design of a high performance bubblegum whose mean in-vivo bubble diameter exceeds that of...
In this work, electron beam induced current (EBIC) and scanning photocurrent microscopy (SPCM) were used to quantitatively investigate the electronic properties of silicon nanowire devices. For the first time, it was shown that minority carrier diffusion lengths in phosphorous-doped silicon nanowires are significantly reduced from their bulk values because of...
A novel cryogenic variable temperature UHV STM has been constructed and utilized to investigate the dynamical behavior of isolated organic molecules covalently bound to silicon surfaces.
The microscope can be operated from 8-300 K, and exhibits extremely low drift rates. A new design has been implemented for the rails (used...
The work presented in this dissertation focuses on ceramic anode materials for solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The primary goal was to characterize the anode and relate the electrochemical behavior to the microstructure. The anode that was most extensively studied in this work was a composite of Gd0.10Ce0.90O1.95 (GDC) and...
A series of investigations was undertaken to explore the processing and properties of porous titanium with 6 wt% Al and 4 wt% vanadium (Ti-6Al-4V) and an equiatomic nickel-titanium alloy (NiTi). In this study, porous materials were created in the solid state by entrapping argon in a powder compact, and subsequently...
Supramolecular chemistry has proven to be an effective strategy for bottom-up fabrication of monodisperse, functional nanostructures. However, most applications require these nanostructures to be spatially or orientationally ordered. This thesis investigates patterning and spatial confinement as tools for controlling order in self-assembling systems.
We first look to improve the ordering...