Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-62). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. / May, Gary, Committee Chair; Doolittle, William, Committee Member; Brown, April, Committee Member; Wang, Zhong Lin, Committee Member; Ralph, Stephen, Committee Member. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-106).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-71).

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 116 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-103).

Gloveboxes, where special nuclear material is handled and such as those present at Los Alamos National Labs, LANL, provide an experimental area confined within a protective shell and with strict environmental controls. These gloveboxes allow workers to indirectly interact with hazardous material. Unfortunately, these gloveboxes are not fail proof and are subject to occasional accidental failures resulting in possible breaches of containment and release of nuclear material. In particular, fires within the gloveboxes are of major concern with regard to the potential for breaches and damage to not only the glovebox but also to surrounding areas as well. Another, potentially even catastrophic, result of glovebox fires is the potential for the spread of radioactive contamination. There is some historical precedent of contaminant release resulting from glovebox fires, such as those at the Rocky Flats Plant (Buffer, 2012). Gloveboxes at LANL are currently equipped with manually activated fire suppression systems. In the event of an incident, a worker would hit a nearby emergency button and the system would be activated. However, this method relies on the worker to have the presence of mind in the face of danger to activate the system, and as such there is no true guarantee that the systems will be triggered. Since the level of consequence is dire, then the ideal situation requires that other fire suppression systems be present which do not rely on human interaction to function. The Fire Foe™ system has been chosen as a secondary failsafe measure in order to meet this need. Analysis of how the casing of the Fire Foe™ system, composed of nylon 6,6 polymer, weathers under irradiation in gloveboxes is paramount in determining the effectiveness and potential lifetimes of the systems within the gloveboxes. Samples of nylon 6,6 were exposed to a 5 Ci PuBe neutron source located at the University of Texas as well as a high dose rate beam of 4.5 MeV alpha particles located at Los Alamos to determine the effect of neutron and alpha particle damage on the polymer material. Subsequent mechanical testing was conducted to determine alteration to the tensile properties of the nylon 6,6 material for both irradiated and non-irradiated samples. / text

As technology continues to scale down, semiconductor manufacturing with 193nm lithography is greatly challenging because the required half pitch size is beyond the resolution limit. In order to bridge the gap between design requirements and manufacturing limitations, various resolution enhancement techniques have been proposed to avoid potentially problematic patterns and to improve product yield. In addition, co-optimization between design performance and manufacturability can further provide flexible and significant yield improvement, and it has become necessary for advanced technology nodes. This dissertation presents the methodologies to consider the lithography impact in different design stages to improve layout manufacturability. Double Patterning Lithography (DPL) has been a promising solution for sub-22nm node volume production. Among DPL techniques, self-aligned double patterning (SADP) provides good overlay controllability when two masks are not aligned perfectly. However, SADP process places several limitations on design flexibility and still exists many challenges in physical design stages. Starting from the early design stage, we analyze the standard cell designs and construct a set of SADP-aware cell placement candidates, and show that placement legalization based on this SADP awareness information can effectively resolve DPL conflicts. In the detailed routing stage, we propose a new routing cost formulation based on SADP-compliant routing guidelines, and achieve routing and layout decomposition simultaneously. In the case that limited routing perturbation is allowed, we propose a post-routing flow based on lithography simulation and lithography-aware design rules. Both routing methods, one in detailed routing stage and one in post routing stage, reduce DPL conflicts/violations significantly with negligible wire length impact. In the layout decomposition stage, layout modification is restricted and thus the manufacturability is even harder to guaranteed. By taking the advantage of complementary lithography, we present a new layout decomposition approach with e-beam cutting, which optimizes SADP overlay error and e-beam lithography throughput simultaneously. After the mask layout is defined, optical proximity correction (OPC) is one of the resolution enhancement techniques that is commonly required to compensate the image distortion from the lithography process. We propose an inverse lithography technique to solve the OPC problem considering design target and process window co-optimization. Our mask optimization is pixel based and thus can enable better contour fidelity. In the final physical verification stage, a complex and time-consuming lithography simulation needs to be performed to identify faulty patterns. We provide a classification method based on support vector machine and principle component analysis that detects lithographic hotspots efficiently and accurately. / text

published_or_final_version / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Physics / Master / Master of Philosophy

The future experimental programs both at FNAL and at CERN will have a strong focus on the search for new physics at the intensity frontier. In order to provide beams of unprecedented intensities to the various experiments at these labs, the booster accelerators in which the beams originate must perform far beyond their original design specifications. The optical properties of the booster accelerator lattices will need to be carefully controlled in order to deliver these high-intensity proton beams. This thesis presents the results of linear optics measurements made with unprecedented precision in the FNAL Booster and the CERN PS Booster using LOCO and K-modulation techniques. In the FNAL Booster, corrections to the observed optics distortions were also successfully implemented. The implications of these results for future high-intensity operations are discussed. / text