Thin films are used for a variety of applications, which can include electronic devices, optical coatings and decorative parts. They are used for their physical, electrical, magnetic, optical and mechanical properties, and many times these properties are required simultaneously. Obtaining these desired properties starts with the deposition process and they are verified by a number of analysis techniques after deposition. A DC magnetron sputter system was used here to deposit tungsten films, with film thickness and residual stress uniformity being of primary interest. The film thickness was measured to vary by up to 45 % from the center to outer edge of a 4" wafer. Ar pressure was found to influence the thin film residual stress with lower Ar pressures leading to compressive residual stress (-1.5 GPa) and higher Ar pressures leading to tensile residual stress (1 GPa). Residual stress measurements of the tungsten films were made using a wafer curvature technique and X-ray diffraction. The results of the two techniques were compared and found to be within 20 %. Nanoindentation was used to analyze the mechanical properties of several types of thin films that are commonly used in microelectronic devices. Thin film reduced modulus, hardness, interfacial toughness and fracture toughness were some of the mechanical properties measured. Difficulties with performing shallow indents (less than 100 nm) were addressed, with proper calibration procedures for the indentation equipment and tip area function detailed. Pile-up during the indentation of soft films will lead to errors in the indentation contact depth and area, leading to an overestimation of the films' reduced modulus and hardness. A method was developed to account for pile-up in determining the indentation contact depth and calculating a new contact area for improving the analysis of reduced modulus and hardness. Residual stresses in thin films are normally undesired because in extreme cases they may result in thru-film cracking or interfacial film delamination. With the use of lithography techniques to pattern wafers with areas of an adhesion reducing layer, thin film delamination was controlled. The patterned delamination microchannels may be used as an alternative method of creating microchannels for fluid transport in MEMS devices. Delamination morphology was influenced by the amount of residual stress in the film and the critical buckling stress, which was primarily controlled by the width of the adhesion reducing layers.

The objective of this work is to develop an innovative and quantitative method to study cell failure under fluidic pressure to understand cell membrane mechanical properties. Due to lack of experimental data related to cell failure property, the current research focuses on investigating the cell failure using a micro pipette aspiration experiment method to elaborate gradually increasing hydrostatic pressure to the cell causing the membrane to deform and eventually rupture. Based on our observation, the prostate cancer cells (PC-3) deformed into a deflated and flattened shape under higher hydrostatic pressure (249 Pa) while prostate epithelial cells (PrEC LH) cells generate a spherical and rounded shape. The stress along the cell membrane was estimated from the curvature data captured from the 2D microscopic images for each pressure magnitude to quantify the damage before rupture state. From the results, non-transformed prostate epithelial cells (PrEC LH) presented a stiffer and rupture resilient property compared to transformed prostate cancer cells (PC-3) which presented a softer and vulnerable property. Besides, the alteration of shape of the aspirated membrane directly affected the stress distribution over the membrane and as a result, provoked membrane failure. Multiple pieces of research have shown a higher stiffness of healthy cells compared to cancer cells including one of the previous studies done by our group which have also found that cancer cell tends to become stiffer after exposing to fluid shear stress. The discovery of this cellular behavior and novel numerical quantification method of cell failure could advance the study of cancer cell membrane failure, cellular matrix structure, response to mechanical loadings and potentially foundation in developing new treatment for cancer other than destructive chemical treatment.

Dans l'objectif d'améliorer et d'automatiser la chaîne de reproductiond'objet qui va de l'acquisition à l'impression 3D. Nous avons cherché à caractériserde la saillance sur les objets 3D modélisés par la structure d'un maillage 3D.Pour cela, nous avons fait un état de l'art des méthodes d'estimation des proprié-tés différentielles, à savoir la normale et la courbure, sur des surfaces discrètes sousla forme de maillage 3D. Pour comparer le comportement des différentes méthodes,nous avons repris un ensemble de critères de comparaison classique dans le domaine,qui sont : la précision, la convergence et la robustesse par rapport aux variations duvoisinage. Pour cela, nous avons établi un protocole de tests mettant en avant cesqualités. De cette première comparaison, il est ressorti que l'ensemble des méthodesexistantes présentent des défauts selon ces différents critères. Afin d'avoir une estimationdes propriétés différentielles plus fiable et précise nous avons élaboré deuxnouveaux estimateurs. / With the aim to improve and automate the object reproduction chainfrom acquisition to 3D printing .We sought to characterize the salience on 3D objectsmodeled by a 3D mesh structure. For this, we have a state of the art of estimatingdifferential properties methods, namely normal and curvature on discrete surfaces inthe form of 3D mesh. To compare the behavior of different methods, we took a set ofclassic benchmarks in the domain, which are : accuracy, convergence and robustnesswith respect to variations of the neighbourhood. For this, we have established atest protocol emphasizing these qualities. From this first comparision, it was foundthat all the existing methods have shortcomings as these criteria. In order to havean estimation of the differential properties more reliable and accurate we developedtwo new estimators.

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Finding new examples of compact simply connected spaces admitting a Riemannian metric of positive sectional curvature is a fundamental problem in differential geometry. Likewise, studying topological properties of families of manifolds is very interesting to topologists. The Eschenburg spaces combine both of those interests: they are positively curved Riemannian manifolds whose topological classification is known. There is a second family consisting of the Witten manifolds: they are the examples of compact simply connected spaces admitting Einstein metrics of positive Ricci curvature. Thirdly, there is a notion of generalized Witten manifold as well. Topologically, all three families share the same cohomology ring. This common ring structure motivates the definition of a manifold of type r, where r is the order of the fourth cohomology group. In 1991, M. Kreck and S. Stolz classified manifolds M of type r up to homeomorphism and dieomorphism using invariants s̄[subscript i](M) and s[subscript i](M), for i = 1, 2, 3. This gave rise to many new examples of nondieomorphic but homeomorphic manifolds. In this dissertation, new versions of the homeomorphism and dieomorphism classification of manifolds of type r are proven. In particular, we can replace s̄₁ and s̄₃ by the first Pontrjagin class and the self-linking number in the homeomorphism classification of spin manifolds of type r. As the formulas of the two latter invariants are in general much easier to compute, this simplifies the classification of these manifolds up to homeomorphism significantly. / Graduation date: 2012

Anodisation has been studied for almost eighty years, primary in the field of corrosion science, as a simple and efficient way of producing thick protective oxide coatings on Al, Ti or Zr alloys. Anodisation is an electrochemical oxidation process which relies on the migration of ions across solid films under the action of a large electric field. From the fundamental point of view, many aspects regarding the growth of anodic films have been studied extensively. However, so far, little interest has been devoted to the mechanical aspects involved in the growth process, despite their considerable importance both from an applied as well as from a fundamental point of view. A solid understanding of internal stresses development is indeed crucial in order to guarantee the durability of anodic coatings, their structural and functional properties. In addition, the stress evolution directly reflects the motion of the ions in the film and therefore provides a unique means to investigate in situ the growth mechanisms of anodic films. In this thesis, we have studied the evolution of the internal stresses in anodic TiO2 films in situ during their growth. The stresses have been obtained from changes in the curvature of cantilevered anode samples, measured using a high-resolution multi-beam optical sensor. We demonstrate, for the first time, the capability of this type of curvature sensor for monitoring processes in liquid environments. Experimental data on the internal stresses developing in anodic TiO2 films is provided, and trends regarding the influence of the experimental conditions on the stress evolution are identified. In particular, the evolution of the internal stresses is shown to be strongly correlated with the evolution of the electrochemical variables, which directly demonstrates the interest of curvature measurements as a fundamental technique for investigating the details of the growth process of anodic oxide films. The reversible and irreversible stress contributions associated, respectively, with electrostriction and with growth-related ionic transport have been separated from one another and quantified. A novel constitutive model for the electrostriction stress has been proposed which explicitly takes into account the effect of dielectrostriction.

Otitis media, which is an upper respiratory tract infection that affect the middle ear, is the second most common disease in childhood, outnumbered in prevalence only by the common cold. Diagnosis of middle ear inflammation is often performed in the primary healthcare where the normal procedure involves anamnesis and physical examination of the tympanic membranes (TM) of the patient, usually be means of otoscopy. The general aim of this thesis was to develop optical methods that enable quantification of TM characteristics associated with otitis media. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy was applied to quantify TM erythema using previously suggested erythema detection algorithms. Healthy TM:s were significantly distinguished from TM:s with induced erythema (p < 0.01) and from TM:s in ears with mucous middle ear effusion (p < 0.05). A new technique for surface shape assessment based on an on-axis dual fibre array incorporated in an otoscope was developed and evaluated in ear models and on tympanic membranes from harvested temporal bones. The technique utilises the combined effects of source-detector fibre separation and fibre-to-sample distance on the detected light intensity. Optical phantoms, both polyacetal plastic solids and latex membranes, were utilised to demonstrate the ability of the surface shape assessment technique to differentiate between convex and concave surfaces – as a bulging tympanic membrane is typically associated with acute otitis media whereas a retracted eardrum is associated with otitis media with effusion. Monte Carlo simulations of the surface shape data were performed in order to validate the experimental results with a theoretical model that are consistent with light transport theory. Retracted and bulging tympanic membranes from harvested temporal bones could be separated with a single measurement, given that variations in measurement distance were accounted for and that measurement from normally positioned tympanic membranes were used for signal normalization. In conclusion, the studies implicate that for individual otitis diagnosis, the hyperaemic tympanic membrane was separated from the healthy by application of erythema indices using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Moreover, bulging and retracted positions of the tympanic membrane were separable by means of the source-detector intensity matrix. For further clinical studies it is reasonable to assume that data from both methods are needed for diagnosis.

This thesis presents an axisymmetric numerical model to simulate interfacial flows near a sharp corner, where contact line pinning occurs. The method has been used to analyze drop imbibition into a capillary. To evaluate the performance of the numerical method, for a liquid drop initially placed partially within a capillary, a thermodynamic model has also been developed, to predict equilibrium states. The first part of this thesis presents an axisymmetric VoF algorithm to simulate interfacial flows near a sharp corner. (1) A new method to exactly calculate the normals and curvatures of any circle with a radius as small as the grid size is presented. This method is a hybrid least squares height function technique which fits a discretized osculating circle to a curve, from which interface normals and curvature can be evaluated. (2) A novel technique for applying the contact angle boundary condition has been devised, based on the definition of an osculating circle near a solid phase. (3) A new flux volume construction technique is presented, which can be applied to any split advection scheme. Unlike the traditional approach where the flux volumes are assumed rectangular, the new flux volumes can be either trapezoidal or triangular. The new technique improves the accuracy and consistency of the advection scheme. (4) Explicit PLIC reconstruction expressions for axisymmetric coordinates have been derived. (5) Finally, a numerical treatment of VoF for contact line motion near a sharp corner is presented, base on the idea of contact line pinning and an edge contact angle. The second part of the thesis is on the imbibition of a drop into an open capillary. A thermodynamic analysis based on minimization of an interfacial surface energy function is presented to predict equilibrium configurations of drops. Based on the drop size compared to the hole size, the equilibrium contact angle, and the geometry of the capillary, the drop can be totally imbibed by the capillary, or may not wet the capillary at all. The thesis concludes with application of the numerical scheme to the same problem, to examine the dynamics of wetting or dewetting of a capillary. All of the simulations yield results that correspond to the equilibrium states predicted by the thermodynamic analysis, but offer additional insight on contact line motion and interface deformation near the capillary edge.