Fatigue and electrical degradation including low voltage breakdown of ferroelectric lead zirconate titanate Pb(Zr_xTi_{1 - x})O₃ (i.e. PZT) thin films are the major limitations for commercial memory applications of these films. It is noted that the presence of oxygen vacancies and their entrapment at the electrode-ferroelectric interfaces are the sources of the degradation phenomena. Attempts were made in this study to solve these problems: 1) by minimizing oxygen vacancy entrapment at the interfaces by employing RuO₂ electrodes; 2) by lowering the oxygen vacancy concentration in PZT films using donor doping (e.g. La³⁺ at Pb²⁺ site and Nb⁵⁺ at Ti/Zr⁴⁺ site). For this study, PZT thin films were prepared by a sol-gel method and deposited on both Pt/Ti/SiO₂/Si and RuO₂/SiO₂/Si substrates. The microstructure and electrical properties, such as hysteresis properties, fatigue, leakage current, time dependent dielectric breakdown (TDDB) and retention, were studied with regard to the Zr/Ti ratio, the excess lead, the annealing temperature, the electrode material and the doping amount. Furthermore, the pyrochlore to perovskite phase transformation of PZT on RuO₂ electrodes was also investigated. It was shown that PZT films (Zr/Ti=50/50) with 10 at.% excess lead annealed at 650°C for 30 min possessed the best electrical properties for ferroelectric memory application. In confirmation with earlier theoretical and experimental results, no polarization loss was observed up to 10¹¹ switching cycles for the PZT films deposited on RuO₂ electrodes. However, the low Schottky barrier at the interfaces between RuO₂ and PZT films resulted in a higher leakage current at a high electric fields. Donor doping of PZT films decreased carrier concentrations in PZT films, and thus, decreased the leakage current to acceptable limits. In addition, it was also noted that the pyrochlore to perovskite phase transformation of PZT on RuO₂ was similar to that of PZT on Pt electrodes. It can be concluded that the combination of RuO₂ electrodes and donor doping produced PZT films with high fatigue endurance and low leakage currents which are suitable for memory applications. / Master of Science

Fiber optic sensors fabricated from standard silica fibers have many advantages over conventional sensors like small size, portability, durability and immunity to electromagnetic fields. Unfortunately, these sensors are not suitable for use in harsh environments where the temperatures are greater than 700°C and large working stresses are involved. Sapphire fiber-based sensors present an attractive alternative for use in such environments. The material properties of sapphire like high melting point, extreme hardness and relative imperviousness to chemical reactions, coupled with the advantages of optical fiber sensing, enhance the performance of these sensors for rugged use. Unfortunately, commercial sapphire fiber that is currently available has higher optical attenuation than silica fiber and is costlier. 0, it is prudent to use a small length of sapphire fiber as a sensor head, which is then spliced to a standard singlen10de silica fiber which acts a lead-in/lead-out fiber to the sapphire sensor head. This thesis investigates possible splicing techniques to fabricate such a sensor set-up. Comparative results from experiments performed on splices that have been obtained by each of these techniques, are presented. Furthermore, two different sensor configurations using a sapphire fiber, spliced to a silica fiber, are developed, and the results of preliminary tests are presented. / Master of Science

The performance of an optical fiber depends to a great extent on the conditions of the process being used to draw the fiber from a glass preform. To get fibers with higher strength and lower transmission loss, the parameters of the draw process must be optimized and the geometric uniformity of the fiber must be maintained with high precision. To increase the geometric uniformity of the fiber the online fiber diameter measuring accuracy must be improved. The coating concentricity and uniformity also play an important role in fabricating quality fiber. As the fiber drawing speed goes higher and higher, which is the trend of modern fiber fabrication processes, the uniformity of fiber diameter and coating concentricity becomes even tougher to maintain. The main objective of this research has been to understand and develop an optical fiber drawing process that produces fiber with improved dimensional uniformity, higher strength and lower transmission loss. Particular emphasis has been given to the accurate measurement of on-line fiber diameter, which is the first and most important step in obtaining uniform fiber. / Master of Science

Interference between the modes of an optical fiber results in specific intensity patterns which can be modulated as a function of disturbances in the optical fiber system. These modulation effects are a direct result of the difference in propagation constants of the constituent modes. In this presentation it is shown how the modulated intensity patterns created by the interference of specific mode groups in few-mode optical fibers (V < 5.0) can be used to detect strain. A detailed discussion of the modal phenomena responsible for the observed strain induced pattern modulation is given and it is shown that strain detection sensitivities on the order of 10-9 can be expected. Data taken during the evaluation of an actual experimental strain detection system based on the developed theory is also presented. / Master of Science

Interference between the modes of an optical fiber generates specific mode (intensity) patterns which get modulated by disturbances in the optical fiber system. Mode-mode interference has been analyzed from first principles and a model based on differential phase modulation presented. Mode-mode interference effects such as intensity modulation of the mode patterns are directly related to differential phase modulation between modes which arises due to the difference between the propagation constants of the constituent modes. Practical implementation of modal methods involves selective launching of modes and processing of the output pattern to demodulate the information. Axial strain has been chosen as the modulating mechanism in experiments designed to quantify mode-mode interference effects. Quasi-statically varying strain as well as vibrational strain was used to study 'dc' and 'ac' mechanisms. Specific mode combinations have been excited and their radiation patterns identified. Mode pattern changes have been described. Experimental observations and results correlate very well with analysis. / Master of Science

The effect of the cylindrically orthotropic morphology known to exist in graphite fibers on the effective properties of a composite material was studied using the composite cylinder assemblage model. The cylindrical orthotropy of the fibers was found to have no effect on the properties of a composite with purely orthotropic fibers. For fibers with a transversely isotropic core both the size of the core and the morphology of the sheath were found to have an effect on the composite properties. The stress states resulting in the composite cylinder for axial, radial, axial shear, and thermal loads were examined. Singular stresses were observed to occur at r=0 in some fibers in some load conditions. The presence of a transversely isotropic core, which must exist in a real fiber, removed this singularity. The strength of the composite cylinder was found to depend on uÌ ber morphology. The size of the transversely isotropic core within the uÌ ber also affected the strength. The strength of the uÌ ber increased with increasing transversely isotropic core size in some instances. In general, for axial loading failure is expected to be caused by fiber breakage. For radial, axial shear, and thermal loading the failure mode is uÌ ber splitting. / Master of Science

A time-dependent characterization study was performed on T300/934 graphite/epoxy in a simulated space environment. Creep tests on irradiated and non-irradiated graphite/epoxy and bulk resin specimens were carried out at temperatures of 72 °F and 250 °F. Irradiated specimens were exposed to dosages of penetrating electron radiation equal to 30 years 'exposure at GEO-synchronous orbit. Radiation was shown to have little effect on the creep response of both the composite and bulk resin specimens at 72 °F while radiation had a significant effect at 250 °F. A healing process was shown to be present in the irradiated specimens where broken bonds in the epoxy due to radiation recombined over time to form cross-links in the 934 resin structure. An analytical, micromechanical model was also developed to predict the viscoelastic response of fiber reinforced composite materials. The model was shown to correlate well with experimental results for linearly viscoelastic materials with relatively small creep strains. / Master of Science

Single-mode optical fiber has been widely used not only in long-haul, high speed digital communication systems but also in sensing applications because of its inherent immunity to electromagnetic interference, low transmission loss, wide bandwidth, small size, and light weight. Birefringence is an important parameter of the optical fiber, determining bandwidth in fiber optic telecommunications, and resolution in fiber optic sensors. This thesis describes and demonstrates permanent photo-induced rotation of the principal axes of birefringence in Ge-doped circular-core low-birefringence single-mode optical fiber. Light from a linearly polarized Ar⁺ laser at a wavelength of 488 nm was launched into the fiber along one of the principal axes of the initial birefringence in the fiber. Rotation of the principal axes was observed after several hours of exposure. This observation helps one to understand the mechanism of the photo-induced effects in Ge-doped optical fiber, and to discover possible ways to control the birefringence in the fiber by means of photo exposure. / Master of Science

This thesis evaluates a new approach for effectively increasing the dynamic range of optical fiber links for transporting RF signals. This new approach, called the Dynamic Range Enhancement Technique (DRET), is key to connecting remotely located microcell base station antenna sites to a centralized base station via optical fiber while maintaining a good dynamic range. This thesis examines the causes and characteristics of distortion introduced by the optical fiber link and describes and compares the performance of the DRET with other dynamic range enhancing techniques using computer simulation. In most instances, the DRET is shown to be superior both in reducing harmonic and intermodulation distortion compared to other dynamic range enhancement techniques. The DRET has several advantages over automatic gain control (AGC) including stability and the absence of parasitic modulation on weak signals caused by fading or transient high power signals. / Master of Science

The physical and optical properties of sapphire fiber has been investigated in an effort to create a high temperature optical fiber sensor. Sapphire fiber demonstrates high optical attenuation. This attenuation is very sensitive to injection conditions, and roughly proportional to the cube of the fiber length. The loss was found to be largely due to surface scattering, which causes the fiber to deviate from a perfect cylindrical waveguide. Because of the high optical losses (and high cost) of sapphire fiber, it is desirable to fashion a splice between the sapphire and an inexpensive, low-loss silica fiber so that sapphire is only used in the sensor head. The great physical disparities between sapphire and silica make this a challenging proposition. One solution demonstrated here is the sapphire capillary tube splice, in which the two fibers are aligned in a sapphire capillary tube and bound together with alumino-silicate glass. Sapphire fiber optical sensors cannot use standard interferometric techniques used with silica fibers because sapphire fibers are not clad, making a strongly guiding, highly multimode waveguide that introduces a great deal of modal distortion to interferometric signals. Consequently a simple intensity-based sensor was developed and tested using sapphire. More exotic intensity-based sensors are explored with their applicability to a sapphire fiber sensor head. / Master of Science