Thin films are used in many energy conversion applications, ranging from photodetectors to solar cells. Accurately predicting the radiative properties of thin films when they possess rough surfaces is critical in many instances, but can be challenging due to the complexity arising from light scattering and interferences at the microscale. This work describes measurements of the spectral transmittance and reflectance of several thin-film materials (including crystalline silicon wafers and a polycrystalline diamond film) in the mid-infrared spectral region (2 20 m) using a Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer. The transmittance and reflectance were calculated using thin-film optics for the double-side polished samples and scalar scattering theory for the single-side polished samples. The effects of partial coherence are considered using a fringe smoothing technique. The interval used for fringe smoothing was assumed to be linearly dependent on the wavenumber. Good agreement between the predicted and measured transmittance was achieved for the double-side polished silicon wafers and for the diamond film. The disagreement for some single-side polished silicon wafers may be inherently related to their surface microstructures, as suggested from surface topographic data and images obtained from surface profilometry and microscopy. By comparing the intervals used for fringe smoothing with the instrumental resolution, beam divergence in the spectrometer was found to be a major factor contributing to the partial coherence. Future research is proposed to investigate the correlation between the detailed surface characteristics and the conical-conical transmittance and reflectance.

The main objective of this thesis is to develop models for the power distribution network of high performance gigascale chips. The two main concerns in distributing power in a chip are voltage drop and electromigration-induced reliability failures. The voltage drop on the power distribution network is due to IR-drop and simultaneous switching noise. IR-drop is the voltage drop due to current passing through the resistances of the power distribution network. Simultaneous switching noise is due to varying current passing through the inductances of the power distribution network. Compact physical models are derived for the IR-drop and electromigration for different types of packages. These chip-package co-design models enable designers in the early stages of the design to estimate the on-chip interconnect resources, and also to choose type and size of the package required for power distribution. Modeling of the simultaneous switching noise requires the simulation of a large circuit with thousands of inductances. The main obstacle challenging the simulation of a simultaneous switching noise circuit model is the computing resources required to solve the dense inductance matrix. In this work, a new relative inductance matrix is introduced to solve massively coupled RLC interconnects. It is proven that the analysis using this method is accurate for a wide frequency range and all configurations. Using the new inductance matrix makes the circuit simulations significantly faster without losing accuracy.

In this study, three different MR pulse sequences, IR-FSE, MP2RAGE, and firstly proposed MP3RAGE, were applied to obtain high-resolution 3D T1 mapping of whole brain at 1.5 Tesla. Among these three sequences, MP2RAGE uses fast gradient echo as readout module. Signals of two different inversion times are acquired at once and can be used to calculate T1 relaxation time according to Bloch equation. However, the magnetization was also influenced by the excitation efficiency of inversion adiabatic pulse, which was usually estimated by numerical simulation and taken as a constant over the field of view in the literature. However, this might not be true in practice. Therefore, a newly modified pulse sequence, MP3RAGE, was proposed to acquire data of three distinct inversion times without increasing scanning time. As a result, the spatial distribution of T1 and inversion efficiency can be assessed by solving nonlinear least square problem. In addition, the IR-FSE sequence with six inversion times was also applied in every experiment to provide T1 value for reference. Results showed that the T1 estimation obtained by MP2RAGE is close to, but slightly lower than that by IR-FSE, which is in agreement with those reported in literatures. In addition, the 3D high-resolution maps of T1 and efficiency were successfully estimated with the use of MP3RAGE. Spatial smoothing on inversion efficiency helps reducing the sensitivity to noise in the nonlinear approach, leading to T1 values closer to those by IR-FSE.

Magnesium alloys have one of the highest specific strengths of all construction metals used. Specifically, magnesium alloy castings are used in the aerospace industry to reduce the weight of aerospace vehicles. Coating systems must be employed to prevent corrosion of these magnesium alloys as they are also the most corrosion prone construction metals. The use of chromium is employed for the conversion coating which forms the foundation of many of these coating systems. In an effort to phase these harmful chromates out of the coating system and continue to use magnesium alloys, an environmentally friendly conversion coating has been developed. This paper explores the best types of methods used to evaluate the thickness and coating coverage of the environmentally friendly conversion coating. Destructive and nondestructive techniques are developed to examine the thickness and surface coverage of this environmentally friendly coating. Specifically an eddy current measurement technique, light, confocal, scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy techniques are used to determine the coating thickness of the environmentally friendly coating through destructive evaluation. Three nondestructive evaluation techniques, including polarized light microscopy, infrared spectroscopy (Fourier Transform and Raman) and an infrared proximity sensor are used to determine surface coverage of the environmentally friendly coating.

<p>The objective of this thesis has been to investigate novel host material configurations for high-power end-pumped Er-Yb co-doped, or Yb doped microchip lasers and try to increase their performance. In Er-Yb co-doped systems, the main limitation is the thermal shortcomings of the phosphate glass host material. The thesis presents some novel results that contribute to the search for a crystalline replacement. In Yb doped systems, most end-pumped schemes reported have been using relatively low-power single-emitter diodes. The thesis presents experiments with Yb:KGW microchips end-pumped by high-power diode bars. Another common limitation of end-pumped Yb microchip lasers is the thermal lens that destabilizes the cavity and decreases the beam quality. The approach to reduce the thermal lens by using an athermal propagation direction has been evaluated and the results are presented in the thesis.</p><p>In the search for a crystalline host material for Er-Yb systems, borates have been found increasingly interesting. Consequently, we started out by investigating Gadolinium-calcium-oxoborate, GdCOB, which could be grown in platinum crucibles. It was found that the cw performance of such monolithic microchips is quite comparable to glass hosts in terms of slope efficiency, but the threshold is significantly larger. As for Q-switched performance, which is essential to most Er-Yb applications, the first efficient Q-switched results with a crystalline host is presented in the thesis. Similar to the cw regime, the slope efficiencies are comparable to glass, while the threshold is quite high. However, the perhaps most important parameter, maximum output power before thermal fracture, is neither significantly improved nor worsened compared with phosphate glass. This is believed to be due to higher threshold and a stronger thermal expansion that negates the benefit of a thermal conductivity that is only 2-3 times higher. To find a host material that could withstand higher pump powers, we turned our attention to the double-tungstates KGW and KYW, which have higher thermal conductivity and higher cross-sections. They have, however, energy level lifetimes which differ significantly from glass or borates and as a consequence, a thorough spectroscopic investigation has been undertaken to optimize dopant concentrations. Laser experiments on crystals with dopant concentrations based on this investigation are expected in the near future.</p><p>When pumping Yb:KGW with a high-power diode bar, we achieved output powers of 9 – 12.4 W under different experimental conditions with incident powers of 18.3 – 26 W. The incident power of 26 W in one design was enough to fracture the crystal. Using a crystal cut for propagation along an athermal direction and comparing it with an identical b-cut crystal, we found that the thermal lens in the athermally oriented crystal was about a factor two weaker at the same absorbed power.</p>

<p>This report treats detection in IR-pictures taken from airplanes over the ground. The detection is divided in two parts. First there is a detection with filterkernels with the task to point on targets and objects that look like targets. The second part is a discriminator that demands more calculations and has the task to sort out the false alarms from the discriminator. Both the detector and the discriminator contain thresholds thats been trained from trainingsets of data. The results from the detector was better then expected hence it wasn’t possible to test the diskriminator properly.</p> / <p>Den här rapporten behandlar detektering i IR-bilder som är tagna från flygplan över marken. Detekteringen är i det här arbetet uppdelat i två delar. Först görs en detektering med filterkärnor som har till uppgift att peka ut mål och målliknande objekt. Den andra delen är en diskriminator som är något mer beräkningskrävande och har till uppgift att sortera bort de falskmål som detektorn fått med. Både detektorn och diskriminatorn innehåller trösklar som har tränats fram med träningsdata. Detektorn gav bättre resultat än väntat och diskriminatorn har därför inte kunnat testas ordentligt.</p>

In dieser Arbeit wird beschrieben, wie sich die in situ-IR-Spektroskopie zur Charakterisierung von CVD-Prozessen einsetzen läßt. Es werden Modellreaktoren vorgestellt, deren Konstruktion an die spektroskopische Verfolgung thermisch aktivierter Gasphasenreaktionen angepaßt ist. Ausgehend von Referenzmessungen, mit deren Hilfe Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der FT-IR-Spektroskopie in Bezug auf die CVD-Prozeßanalytik aufgezeigt werden, können auftretende Species im untersuchten System sicher bestimmt werden. Im Mittelpunkt der Arbeit steht die Untersuchung der Gasphase bei der Thermolyse von Methyltrichlorsilan in Abhängigkeit von den Prozeßparametern Temperatur und Eduktgaszusammensetzung. Die gefundenen Korrelationen werden durch Thermolysen einzelner, nachgewiesener Verbindungen bestätigt. Eine weitere Absicherung der Ergebnisse erfolgt durch Isotopenmarkierung mit Deuterium. Untersuchungen zur Schichtbildung ergänzen die Gasphasenanalytik. Auf Grundlage der nachgewiesenen stabilen und instabilen Species und deren Abhängigkeit von den Prozeßparametern wird ein Mechanismus vorgeschlagen und diskutiert, der die Thermolyse von Methyltrichlorsilan zur Abscheidung von Siliciumcarbid vollständig beschreibt.

The organization of two or more biological macromolecules into a functioning assembly is critical for many biological functions to occur. This phenomenon is the result of subtle interplay between complimentary structural and electrostatic factors. While a growing protein data bank of solved protein structures provides experimental evidence for studying the structural factors that stabilize protein-protein interface, there has been little advance in experimental determination of the electrostatic contributions. This lack of experimental investigation into protein electrostatics results in an inability to describe or predict how protein-protein complexes are arranged and stabilized. This problem is addressed in this dissertation by use of vibrational Stark effect (VSE) spectroscopy in which the spectral transitions of a vibrational probe are directly related to the strength and direction of the electric fields in the vicinity of the probe. The work presented here details an approach using VSE spectroscopy coupled with molecular dynamics simulation (MD) to interpret the role that electrostatics play in organizing the signaling protein Ras' interactions with its downstream effectors Raf and Ral guanosine dissociation simulator (RalGDS). Each chapter describes a specific set of experiments and MD simulations designed to understand the nature of protein-protein interactions. In Chapter 3, changes in the absorption energy of the nitrile probe at nine positions along the Ras-Ral interface were compared to results of a previous study examining this interface with Ral-based probes, and a pattern of low electrostatic field in the core of the interface surrounded by a ring of high electrostatic field around the perimeter of the interface was found. The areas of conserved Stark shifts are used to help describe electrostatic factors that stabilize the Ras-Ral interface. In Chapter 4, VSE is used to describe an electrostatic origin to the binding tilt between complexes formed between Ras and its two effectors Raf and Ral. There are three regions of conserved Stark effect shifts upon docking with WT Ras between the two effectors, indicating that the docked complexes conserve electrostatic fields, resulting in different binding orientation of otherwise structurally similar proteins. Chapter 5 details the use of MD simulation in correlation with VSE data for 18 mutants of the Ras at the oncogenic position 61 site. The combination of experimental and simulations support the hypothesis that position 61 on Ras is used to coordinate an active site water molecule during native guanosine triphosphate (GTP) hydrolysis. / text

The poaching of rhinoceros has increased dramatically the last few years andthe park rangers are often helpless against the militarised poachers. LinköpingUniversity is running several projects with the goal to aid the park rangers intheir work.This master thesis was produced at CybAero AB, which builds Remotely PilotedAircraft System (RPAS). With their helicopters, high end cameras with a rangesufficient to cover the whole area can be flown over the parks.The aim of this thesis is to investigate different methods to automatically findrhinos and humans, using airborne cameras. The system uses two cameras, onecolour camera and one thermal camera. The latter is used to find interestingobjects which are then extracted in the colour image. The object is then classifiedas either rhino, human or other. Several methods for classification have beenevaluated.The results show that classifying solely on the thermal image gives nearly as highaccuracy as classifying only in combination with the colour image. This enablesthe system to be used in dusk and dawn or in bad light conditions. This is animportant factor since most poaching occurs at dusk or dawn. As a conclusion asystem capable of running on low performance hardware and placeable on boardthe aircraft is presented. / Tjuvjakten av noshörningar har ökat drastiskt de senaste åren och parkvakternastår ofta handfallna mot militariserade tjuvjägare. Linköpings Universitet arbetarpå flera projekt som på olika sätt ska vara ett stöd för parkvakterna i deras arbete.Examensarbetet genomfördes på CybAero AB som jobbar med att bygga fjärrstyrdahelikoptrar, så kallade RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft System). Med derassystem kan man bära högkvalitativa kameror och ha stor räckvidd så hela parkenkan övervakas.Det här examensarbetet syftar på att undersöka olika metoder för att från luftburnakameror kunna ge information om vad som pågår i parken. System bygger påatt man har två kameror, en vanlig färgkamera och en värmekamera. Värmekamerananvänds för att hitta intressanta objekt som sedan plockas ut ur färgbilden.Objektet klassificeras sedan som antingen noshörningar, människor eller annat.Flertalet metoder har utvärderas utefter deras förmåga att klassificera objektenkorrekt.Det visade sig att man kan få väldigt bra resultat när man klassificerar endastpå värmebilden vilket ger systemet möjlighet att operera även när det är skymningeller mörkt ute. Det är en väldigt viktig del då de flesta djuren skjuts vidantingen gryning eller skymning. Som slutsats i rapporten presenteras ett förslagpå system som kan köras på lågpresterande hårdvara för att kunna köras direkt iluften.

Tumorerkrankungen stellen in der westlichen Welt eines der wichtigsten Gesundheitsprobleme dar. Das kolorektale Karzinom ist dabei die dritthäufigste Tumorneuerkrankung. Bei fortgeschrittenem Krankheitsverlauf wird zumeist eine kombinierte Radiochemotherapie durchgeführt, bei der zusätzlich zur Bestrahlung Zytostatika wie 5-Fluoruracil oder Oxaliplatin verabreicht werden. Da die eingesetzten Zytostatika nicht ausschließlich gegen Tumorzellen wirken, führt der Einsatz dieser oft zu massiven Nebenwirkungen wie Magen- und Darmproblemen, Myelosuppression und Haarausfall. Neue Therapieansätze versuchen daher Ziele in die Behandlung mit aufzunehmen die stärker karzinomspezifisch sind, wie z.B. verschiedenen Rezeptortyrosinkinasen. Viele Rezeptortyrosinkinasen und deren Liganden liegen im Tumor und umliegenden Gewebe oft dereguliert vor und spielen eine wichtige Rolle bei der Regulierung des Tumorwachstums, der Tumorangiogenese und der Metastasenbildung. In dieser Arbeit konnte für die drei kolorektalen Karzinomzelllinien DLD-1, SW837 und Caco 2 gezeigt werden, dass die gleichzeitige Inhibition des Insulin-like Growth Factor-I Receptor (IGF-IR) und des Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) mit den Tyrosinkinaseinhibitoren AEW-541 (IGF-IR-Inhibitor) und Erlotinib (EGFR-Inhibitor) in vitro zu einem deutlich verstärkten Therapieeffekt der 5-Fluoruracil-basierten Radiochemotherapie führt. Für Xenografttumore der Zelllinie SW837 konnte dieser Effekt auch in vivo bestätigt werden. Mit Hilfe der Co Immunpräzipitation und eines Proximity Ligation Assays konnten in den Kolonkarzinomzelllinien SW480 und DLD-1 Hybridrezeptoren zwischen dem EGFR und dem IGF-IR nachgewiesen werden. Zusätzlich konnte gezeigt werden, dass eine Ligandenstimulation der Rezeptoren zu einer vermehrten EGFR/IGF-IR-Hybridrezeptorbildung führt. Weitere Analysen zeigten, dass für die induzierte Heterodimerisierung beide Liganden notwendig sind und beide Rezeptoren funktionsfähig sein müssen. Mit Hilfe des Proximity Ligation Assays konnten IGF-IR/EGFR-Hybridrezeptoren auch in humanen Rektumtumoren nachgewiesen werden. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit wurde die Bedeutung des Platelet-derived Growth Factor Receptor β (PDGFR-β) in kolorektalen Karzinomzellen untersucht. In SW480- und DLD-1-Zellen führte die Inhibition des PDGFR-β mit Hilfe von spezifischer siRNA zu einer, über den PI3K-Signalweg vermittelten, moderat verminderten Proliferationsrate. Die Verwendung des PDGFR-β-Inhibitors Ki11502 führte in den Zelllinien zu einem starken Rückgang in der Proliferationsrate und zu Veränderungen im Zellzyklus der Zellen. Diese wurden durch eine verminderte Cyclin-B1-Expression hervorgerufen. Weitere Analysen zeigten, dass der Inhibitor Ki11502 neben dem PDGFR-β auch den Rezeptor cKIT (v-kit Hardy-Zuckerman 4 feline sarcoma viral oncogene homolog) und die Zellmembran-assoziierte zytoplasmatische Tyrosinkinase SRC (v-src sarcoma (Schmidt-Ruppin A-2) viral oncogene homolog) inhibiert.