<p>Micro-electro-mechanical systems deformable-membrane mirrors provide a means of focus control and attendant spherical aberration correction for miniaturized imaging systems. The technology has greatly advanced in the last decade, thereby extending their focal range capabilities. This dissertation describes a novel SU-8 2002 silicon-on-insulator wafer deformable mirror. A 4.000 mm x 5.657 mm mirror for 45o incident light rays achieves 22 &#61549;m stroke or 65 diopters, limited by snapdown. The mirrors show excellent optical quality while flat. Most have peak-to-valley difference of less than 150 nm and root-mean-square less than 25 nm. The process proves simple, only requiring a silicon-on-insulator wafer, SU-8 2002, and a metal layer. Xenon difluoride etches the silicon to release the mirrors. Greater than 90% of the devices survive fabrication and release. While current literature includes several aberration analyses on static mirrors, analyses that incorporate the dynamic nature of these mirrors do not exist. Optical designers may have a choice between deformable mirrors and other types of varifocal mirrors or lenses. Furthermore, a dynamic mirror at an incidence angle other than normal may be desired due to space limitations or for higher throughput (normal incidence requires a beam splitter). This dissertation presents an analysis based on the characteristic function of the system. It provides 2nd and 3rd order aberration coefficients in terms of dynamic focus range and base ray incidence angle. These afford an understanding of the significance of different types of aberrations. Root-mean-square and Strehl calculations provide insight into overall imaging performance for various conditions. I present general guidelines for maximum incidence angle and field of fiew that provide near diffraction-limited performance. Experimental verification of the MEMS mirrors at 5o and 45o incidence angles validates the analytical results. A Blu-ray optical pick-up imaging demonstration shows the utility of these mirrors for focus control and spherical aberration correction. Imaging results of the first demonstration of a deformable mirror for dynamic agile focus control and spherical aberration correction in a commercial table-top confocal microscope are also shown.

<p> This thesis is focused on two topics: (i) synthesis and characterization of bilayer graphene and pyrolytic carbon by atmospheric pressure chemical vapor deposition, and (ii) application of graphene in the fabrication of a buckyball memory device. </p><p> Monolayer and bilayer graphene are semi-metal with zero bandgap. One can induce a bandgap in bilayer graphene by applying a gate voltage in the stacking direction. Thus, bandgap and Fermi level in bilayer graphene can be controlled simultaneously with a double-gate device, making it a useful material for future semiconducting applications. Controlled synthesis of bilayer graphene would be the first step to fabricate bilayer graphene based devices. In this context, we report a uniform and low-defect synthesis of bilayer graphene on evaporated nickel films. Ultra-fast cooling is employed to control the number of layers and sample uniformity. The process is self-limiting, which leads to bilayer graphene synthesis over a wide range of growth-time and precursor flow-rate. </p><p> Pryolytic carbon is another important carbon nanomaterial, due to its diverse applications in electronic and biomedicalengineering. We employ chemical vapor deposition with ultra-fast cooling technique to synthesize pyrolytic carbon. Furthermore, we elucidate a method to calculate the in-plane crystal size by using Raman spectroscopy. </p><p> Finally, the use of bilayer graphene in a write-once read-many memory device has been demonstrated. The device showed irreversible switching from low-resistance to high-resistance state, with hysteresis in the transport characteristics. The control sample showed random switching and hysteresis due to electromigration of metal atoms into the active material of the device. We attribute the reliability and performance of the reported device to the ultra-smooth graphene contacts, which additionally inhibits electromigration from the underlying metallic film. Moreover, the memory device showed excellent endurance and retention characteristics.</p>

<p> Personalized medicine requires the development of new technologies for controlled or targeted drug delivery. Three-dimensional (3D) printing and additive manufacturing techniques can be used to generate customized constructs for bioactive compound delivery. Nanotechnology in the form of nanoparticles, used as a stand-alone construct or for material enhancements, can significantly improve established biomaterials such as PMMA based bone cements or enable new technology to have enhanced capabilities. Combinations of the technologies can be used in such applications as infectious disease treatments, chemotherapeutic targeted drug delivery or targeted delivery of nearly any bioactive compound. </p><p> Chemotherapeutic or antibiotic enhanced 3D printing filaments were invented and designed to allow for the fabrication of antibiotic beads, drug eluting catheters, drains, stents, screws or any bioactive construct. Halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) were investigated as a modular platform and solely or in combinations were coated in metals including: iron for magnetic targeted delivery including hyperthermia, gold for laser targeted hyperthermia or barium as a contrast agent for visualization. The particles were test loaded with antibiotics or chemotherapeutics as well as coated in biocompatible coatings containing lipids or layered polyelectrolytes. Nanoparticles were added to 3D printing filaments or bone cements to test increases in strength, contrast or pore size.</p><p> 3D print filaments and bioactive constructs that eluted gentamicin sulfate were tested using clinical microbiology lab standards and were shown to inhibit bacterial growth. 3D print filaments that eluted methotrexate were shown to inhibit proliferation of osteosarcoma cells and also provided a means for sustained drug release. Halloysite was successfully shown as a modular platform that could be highly customized for patient specific uses. Single coatings or combinations of magnetically susceptible iron coatings, gold coatings, drug loading of multiple bioactive compounds and biocompatible coatings were also developed. Bone cements with barium-coated particles were shown to have enhanced contrast.</p><p> The first ever ability to create and use bioactive 3D printing filaments on consumer printers was realized and HNTs were developed as proof of principle for multifunctional and real time customizable nanoparticle platforms. Nanoparticles as additives showed ways to modify established biomaterials or 3D printing filaments with enhanced features and properties.</p>

As of 2010, cancer remains the leading cause of death in Canada, and second in the United States of America. This is despite decades of research into development of chemotherapeutics and diagnostics. A number of major challenges have prevented new discoveries from translating into a reduction in mortality rates. One challenge is the poor efficiency with which anti-cancer agents (diagnostic contrast agents and therapeutics) reach deregulated cells in the body. Therefore, development of new methods and technologies for improving efficiency of delivery has been a focus of research. Nanoparticles are leading candidates for improving the efficiency of delivery because they can act as payload vehicles for anti-cancer agents, because it is possible to mediate their interaction with biological systems and thus their pharmaockinetics, and because they can exploit inherent vulnerabilities of tumours. This thesis describes the results from a series of research projects designed to progress our understanding of how nanoparticles behave in vivo, and how their design can be optimized to improve tumour targeting.

Nucleic acid analysis is one of the most important disease diagnostic approaches in medical practice, and has been commonly used in cancer biomarker detection, bacterial speciation and many other fields in laboratory. Currently, the application of powerful research methods for genetic analysis, including the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA sequencing, and gene expression profiling using fluorescence microarrays, are not widely used in hospitals and extended-care units due to high-cost, long detection times, and extensive sample preparation. Bioassays, especially chip-based electrochemical sensors, may be suitable for the next generation of rapid, sensitive, and multiplexed detection tools. Herein, we report three different microelectrode platforms with capabilities enabled by nano- and microtechnology: nanoelectrode ensembles (NEEs), nanostructured microelectrodes (NMEs), and hierarchical nanostructured microelectrodes (HNMEs), all of which are able to directly detect unpurified RNA in clinical samples without enzymatic amplification. Biomarkers that are cancer and infectious disease relevant to clinical medicine were chosen to be the targets. Markers were successfully detected with clinically-relevant sensitivity. Using peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) as probes and an electrocatalytic reporter system, NEEs were able to detect prostate cancer-related gene fusions in tumor tissue samples with 100 ng of RNA. The development of NMEs improved the sensitivity of the assay further to 10 aM of DNA target, and multiplexed detection of RNA sequences of different prostate cancer-related gene fusion types was achieved on the chip-based NMEs platform. An HNMEs chip integrated with a bacterial lysis device was able to detect as few as 25 cfu bacteria in 30 minutes and monitor the detection in real time. Bacterial detection could also be performed in neat urine samples. The development of these versatile clinical diagnostic tools could be extended to the detection of various cancers, genetic, and infectious diseases.

<p> As the conventional scaling of Si-based MOSFETs would bring negligible or even negative merits for IC's beyond the 7-nm CMOS technology node, many perceive the use of high-mobility channels to be one of the most likely principle changes, in order to achieve higher performance and lower power. However, interface and oxide traps have become a major obstacle for high-mobility semiconductors (such as Ge, InGaAs, GaSb, GaN...) to replace Si CMOS technology.</p><p> In this thesis, the distinct properties of the traps in the high-k dielectric/high-mobility substrate system is discussed, as well as the challenges to characterize and passivate them. By modifying certain conventional gate admittance methods, both the fast and slow traps in Ge MOS gate stacks is investigated. In addition, a novel ac-transconductance method originated at Yale is introduced and demonstrated with several advanced transistors provided by collaborating groups, such as ultra-thin-body &amp; box SO1 MOSFETs (CEA-LETI), InGaAs MOSFETs (IMEC, UT Austin, Purdue), and GaN MOS-HEMT (MIT).</p><p> By use of the aforementioned characterization techniques, several effective passivation techniques on high mobility substrates (Ge, InGaAs, GaSb, GeSn, etc.) are evaluated, including a novel Ba sub-monolayer passivation of Ge surface. The key factors that need to be considered in passivating high mobility substrates are revealed.</p><p> The techniques that we have established for characterizing traps in advanced field-effect transistors, as well as the knowledge gained about these traps by the use of these techniques, have been applied to the study of ionizing radiation effects in high-mobility-channel transistors, because it is very important to understand such effects as these devices are likely to be exposed to radiation-harsh environments, such as in outer space, nuclear plants, and during X-ray or UHV lithography. In this thesis, the total ionizing dose (TD) radiation effects of InGaAs-based MOSFETs and GaN-based MOS-HEMT are studied, and the results help to reveal the underlying mechanisms and inspire ideas for minimizing the TID radiation effects.</p>

In this thesis, investigations into fabricating tin oxide hydrogen gas sensors from films assembled by the deposition of tin clusters are reported. The tin clusters were formed in a UHV compatible cluster apparatus by DC magnetron sputtering and inert gas aggregation. Through SEM imaging, it was found that the morphology of tin cluster assembled films deposited onto silicon nitride substrates was highly coalesced. The coalescence between the clusters was significantly reduced by reacting the clusters with nitrogen before they were deposited. This resulted in granular films with a grain size close to that of the deposited clusters. The coalesced and granular tin films were used to fabricate tin oxide conducti-metric gas sensors. This was done by depositing the tin films onto gold contacts and then oxidising them by baking them at 250°C for 24 hours. The sensors were tested using a purpose built gas test rig. It was found that the sensors with the granular film morphology were much more sensitive to 500 ppm, 1000 ppm, and 5000 ppm of hydrogen at 200°C in ambient air with zero humidity. This was attributed to the smaller grain size and the larger surface area of the granular films.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2007. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-124). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-308).