Various sizes of BaTiO3 and Cr3+-doped BaTiO3 nanocrystals were synthesized through hydrothermal and solvothermal methods. The applied solvents water, ethanol and benzyl alcohol lead to nanoparticles with average sizes of 200, 10 and 5 nm, respectively. The nanocrystals were treated with trioctylphosphine oxide to remove surface-bound dopant ions, and colloidal free-standing nanocrystals smaller than 10 nm were obtained by using oleic acid as a dispersant surfactant. The tetragonal-to-cubic phase transition at room temperature of undoped nanocrystalline BaTiO3 has been investigated by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. The size effect of nanoscale BaTiO3 is observed that the tetragonal phase becomes unstable with decreasing particle size. However, we found that ferroelectric tetragonal structure persists to some extent even for particles at 5 nm. The successful substitution of Ti4+ with Cr3+ in the host BaTiO3 lattice for all three sizes was achieved at different Cr3+/Ti4+ molar ratios. The dopant is found to significantly promote the phase transition, even dominate over the size effect. Ligand-field electronic absorption spectroscopy suggests a subtle change of the octahedral coordinated Cr3+ environments between particles at 5 and 10 nm, confirming the structural differences. Preliminary magnetic measurement indicates Cr3+ as isolated paramagnetic ions without any chromium clusters or oxides. The ability to rationally manipulate the ferroelectric properties of BaTiO3 by size and dopants, in combination with possible ferromagnetism induced by incorporating paramagnetic transition metal ions, opens up new opportunities for modern multiferroic materials in information storage technology.

A new active LO phase shifter was introduced and implemented in a 2x2 wide band MIMO receiver. The chip was designed with STMicroelectronics 90nm technology. The main advantages of the proposed phase shifter over previous works included a wide band range, high resolution and small area. The phase shifter is based on the dependency of the inverter propagation delay on the load capacitance. Simply, by changing the load capacitance of an inverter, a different propagation delay is generated. A number of these controllable delay cells are cascaded to provide the required phase-shift. In order for the delay cells to reduce the required amount of phase-shifting the I&Q swap circuit is introduced. The I&Q swap circuitry reduces the phase-shifting by one fourth of the original range. The wide band phase shifter is suitable for multi-standard radios, since just one phase shifter is needed to support all standards. This capability of the phase shifter could potentially reduce the size of the die and simplify the design. The measurement shows that the phase shifter is able to provide 360˚ of phase-shifting at the output base band signal when the LO is varying from 1.5GHz to 6GHz. A wider range of the phase shifter is achievable by reducing the capacitance load and increasing the number of cascaded delay cells. The proposed phase shifter is capable of achieving a very high resolution. The resolution of the phase shifter is a function of the inverter current capability and the load capacitance. The measurements show the average resolution of the proposed phase shifter is about 1.32ps. Passive components usually take up a large area on the chip. A MOS capacitor is used as the load to reduce the area of the proposed phase shifter. A method is proposed to improve the phase shifter stability over the temperature and process variations. This method is based on the fact that the propagation delay of an inverter is inversely proportional to the power supply. Therefore, the phase shifters’ power supply must be varied to maintain a relatively constant phase shifter resolution over the temperature and process variations.

The objective of the current research project relies on implementation of solvent-free, green and environmentally friendly solid phase microextraction (SPME) sample preparation alternative in the area of complex sample characterization. The advantages that the technique offers in comparison to traditional methods of sample preparation including solvent-free implementation, short sample preparation times, small sample amount requirements, advanced automation capability and minimization of matrix effects are effectively employed during ex vivo and laboratory investigations of complex samples. More important, the underlying features of the technique including miniaturized format, nonexhaustive extraction recoveries and on-site compatibility were fully exploited in order to investigate the metabolome of biological systems directly on the site. Hence, in vivo SPME extraction format was employed in direct immersion SPME sampling of biological systems, hence eliminating the crucial prerequisites associated with multiple preparative steps and incorporation of metabolism quenching that are encountered during implementation of traditional sample preparation methods in global metabolite analysis. Furthermore, in vivo sampling format was hyphenated to comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography – time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GCxGC-ToFMS) for high-resolution sampling of volatile and semivolatile metabolites in ‘Honeycrisp’ apples. The initial stages of the project involved evaluation of performance characteristics of commercial SPME extraction coatings in terms of extraction selectivity, extraction sensitivity and desorption efficiency by employing headspace SPME analysis of both aqueous standards spiked with representative volatile and semivolatile metabolites as well as the apple homogenate. DVB/CAR/PDMS coating was selected on the basis of optimum metabolite coverage and extraction sensitivity and was consequently employed during ex vivo and in vivo sampling assays corresponding to determination of volatile and semivolatile metabolites. The former extraction methodology incorporated appropriate sample preparation steps for quenching metabolic activity so that the relevant metabolome profile is not biased against unstable metabolites and those that are susceptible to inter-metabolite conversions which adversely impact preservation of metabolite identity. The two sample preparation assays were compared in terms of metabolite coverage and analytical precision in order to identify SPME route toward characterization of more representative metabolome and determination of instantaneous and more ‘true’ metabolism snapshoot. This is the first report illustrating the implementation of in vivo direct immersion SPME assay for non invasive determination of endogenous fruit metabolites whose profiles and contents are highly correlated to a multitude of influential fruit quality traits.

Global phase diagrams of binary systems in pressure-temperature (PT) space are very useful. In this project the techniques to automatically develop global phase diagrams in PT space were created. The codes to compute different components of a global phase diagram in PT space were developed. These codes were then successfully incorporated into a single functional program. <p>To generate the binary PT phase diagram, the overall composition was varied from pure component 2, the least volatile component (LVC) to pure component 1, the most volatile component (MVC). The step size for changing mole fraction was varied in the calculation of different parts of a global phase diagram. When the points near the joining points between different parts were computed, the step size was set to a rather small value. The step size was then increased to twice of the last value for each subsequent point computed. When the MVC mole fraction was approaching one, the step size was set to a small value to obtain enough points needed to minimize the chances of missing important phenomena. <p>The techniques to set initial guesses for evaluation of different components of a global phase diagram were discussed. The code performance, including the number of iterations for different convergence criteria and the sensitivity of the algorithm were presented. Using the code developed, phase diagrams of type I, type II, type III and type V were generated using representative binary systems from the petroleum processing field. <p>The boundary states between different types of phase behaviour were also explored. It was observed that with the increase of the binary interaction parameters, the phase behaviour of the ethane + ethanol binary system changes from type I to type II to type III while the methane + n-hexane binary system changes from type V to type III. These conclusions matched the results of van Konynenburg and Scott (1980). It was also concluded that with the increase of the binary interaction parameter for a binary system, the system showed a trend to exhibit more liquid-liquid immiscibility.

The objective of the proposed research is to investigate new and more efficient techniques in numerical evaluation and experimental measurement of phase jitter impact on more general communication systems including dispersion management, filtering, and spectral inversion schemes. There has recently been a renewed effort to develop coherent optical communication systems. In particular, differential phase-shift keying (DPSK), which does not require a local oscillator to perform decoding, has focused the attention and is perceived to be the promising candidate for future optical communication systems updates. This motivates us to exploit DPSK in wavelength-division multiplexed systems. First, modulation formats based on phase show an increased robustness to nonlinear impairments such as cross-phase modulation (XPM) and nonlinear polarization rotation, primarily because the time-dependence of optical power is deterministic and periodic. Second, coherent formats allow a higher spectral efficiency since both in-phase and quadrature dimensions of the signal space are available to encode information. Optical phase is also used in intensity-modulated direct detection systems as an extra degree of freedom, for example to provide better resistance to intrachannel four-wave mixing (FWM), or to increase spectral efficiency in duobinary modulation. Finally, phase modulation outperforms its intensity counterpart in terms of sensitivity since a 3 dB improvement can be achieved when balanced detection is used. Nevertheless, DPSK-based formats show a different behavior to noise accumulated along the propagation. Noise-induced power fluctuations are converted into phase fluctuations by the Kerr effect and become a penalty source which limits the transmission system reach. In this context, there have been intense research activities for evaluating phase uncertainties but the previous studies assume an analytically determined pulse shape and a constant-dispersion optical link which is far from reflecting the actual and future structures of transmission lines.

Photonic crystal is the periodic structure with different refractive index media. Its photonic-bandgap characteristics could be used to make the photonic crystal lasers. Because of the difficulty of fabrication, the development of three-dimensional photonic crystal is far behind the two-dimensional and one-dimensional photonic crystals. Blue phase liquid crystals are formed by periodic lattice structure with double-twisted cylinder, therefore it is a three-dimensional self-assembled photonic crystal. The objective in this study is to fabricate the three-dimensional photonic crystal blue phase liquid crystal laser by investigating the materials and the fabricating conditions. In this thesis, we doped the laser dye in the blue phase liquid crystal to make the laser device. Firstly, we studied blue phase temperature range and Bragg reflection wavelength under different material ratio. The blue phase lattice structures under different cool rate and surface treatment could be investigated by observing Kossel diagram . According to the experiment results, three-dimensional blue phase photonic crystal laser under room temperature could be achieved through appropriate material ratio, and its Bragg reflection wavelength is corresponds to the emission spectrum of the doped laser dye. By decreasing the cooling rate and the adapting homogeneous alignment of the substrates, the laser output will become more stable. As the result, we successfully fabricated the three-dimensional liquid crystal blue phase laser device at room temperature, and measured three-dimensional laser output. In addition, We study the relations between the laser emission direction and the alignment direction, and the temperature tuning characteristics of the laser wavelength. These results are very useful for the development of the three dimension tunable laser.

Liquid and gas do not separate naturally in microgravity, presenting a problem for twophase space systems. Increased integration of multiphase systems requires a separation method adaptable to a variety of systems. Researchers at Texas A&M University (TAMU) have developed a microgravity vortex separator (MVS) capable of handling both a wide range of inlet conditions and changes in these conditions. To optimize the MVS design, the effects of nozzle area, separator geometry, and inlet flow rate must be understood. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), in the form of Adapco’s Star-CD, is used, along with laboratory testing, to accomplish this goal. Furthermore, as analysis aids for the laboratory data and CFD results, relationships for radial pressure, bubble transit time, and momentum transfer were developed. Ground testing data showed a linear relationship between rotational speed and inlet flow rate. The CFD results compared well with the ground data and indicated that the majority of the rotational flow travels at nearly the same rotational speed. Examination of the tangential velocity profile also showed that a reduction of nozzle outlet area resulted in increased tangential velocities. Using dimensional analysis, a relationship between separator radius, inlet momentum rate, fluid properties, and rotational speed was found. Applying this relationship to the ground data and CFD results showed a strong correlation between the two dimensionless groups. Linear regression provided an equation linking rotational speed to the separator parameters. This equation was tested against the ground data and shown to predict average rotational speed well for all separator models. These results were used to calculate the radial and axial transit times of gas bubbles within the separation volume. Radial transit time was found to decrease more rapidly than axial transit time as gas volume increased, indicating axial and radial transit times are closest in value for the all liquid case and increasing gas core diameter improves the operational characteristics of the separator. From a design standpoint, the all liquid case provides a minimum flow rate for successful phase separation. Maximum flow rate depends on the pressure resources of the system.

Conventionally streamlines are traced using total flux across the grid cell faces. The visualization of total flux streamlines shows the movement of flood, injector-producer relationship, swept area and movement of tracer. But they fail to capture some important signatures of reservoir dynamics, such as dominant phase in flow, appearance and disappearance of phases (e.g. gas), and flow of components like CO2. In the work being presented, we demonstrate the benefits of visualizing phase and component streamlines which are traced using phase and component fluxes respectively. Although the phase and component streamlines are not appropriate for simulation, as they might be discontinuous, they definitely have a lot of useful information about the reservoir processes and recovery mechanisms. In this research, phase and component streamline tracing has been successfully implemented in three-phase and compositional simulation and the additional information obtained using these streamlines have been explored. The power and utility of the phase and component streamlines have been demonstrated using synthetic examples and two field cases. The new formulation of streamline tracing provides additional information about the reservoir drive mechanisms. The phase streamlines capture the dominant phase in flow in different parts of the reservoir and the area swept corresponding to different phases can be identified. Based on these streamlines the appearance and disappearance of phases can be identified. Also these streamlines can be used for optimizing the field recovery processes like water injection and location of infill wells. Using component streamlines the movement of components like CO2 can be traced, so they can be used for optimizing tertiary recovery mechanisms and tracking of tracers. They can also be used to trace CO2 in CO2 sequestration project where the CO2 injection is for long term storage in aquifers or reservoirs. They have also other potential uses towards study of reservoir processes and behavior such as drainage area mapping for different phases, phase rate allocations to reservoir layers, etc.

Industrial facilities that plan the shutdown of equipment for service have large financial savings compared to those managing unplanned shutdowns. To this end, a variety of algorithms have been developed and published in the literature that can monitor a machine's health and indicate when the machine starts to develop a fault. In order for such algorithms to be effective, they require raw data collected from machines. Often this involves the placement of accelerometers and other sensory devices for measurements of mechanical behavior. It is possible to extract much of the required information from the electrical signals of the equipment. This is normally a less expensive installation since one only needs access to the lines supplying electric power to the equipment. If these data acqusistion modules are accessible wirelessly, then one can monitor all the interfaced equipment from a central location. To successfully monitor such electrical equipment, a data acquisition unit is required that can sample on five or six channels simultaneously, depending on the switch gear configuration. This thesis details the development of an "endpoint" device that samples the required number of channels to monitor the electrical signals of industrial equipment, and interfaces to a wireless network. The hardware and software design of the "endpoint" is discussed in detail. Also, the software design of the server that receives the data from the "endpoint" is presented. The designed "endpoint" samples up to six channels simultaneously, at a rate of at least 8 kHz per channel, and a data resolution of 16 bits. The data are then transmitted wirelessly to a central server for processing. The system has been tested both in a laboratory environment and at an industrial environment. The desired specifications of the "endpoint" have been verified in both environments. Several "endpoints" have been assembled to form a network and have been tested in a laboratory setting. This work has resulted in the demonstration that an "endpoint" can be constructed using of the shelf components that is suitable for the continuous health monitoring of multi-phase electric machines through a wireless network.

Zirconium base alloys have very good metallic glass forming ability. In this study,the Zr-Cu-Ni ternary isotherm at 800¢J were determined by using metallography,electron-probe microanalysis and X-ray diffraction.The main objective is to provide the necessary information for alloy design to form new Zr-base with better glass forming ability.