Browsing Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations by Subject "Nanotechnology"
Now showing items 1-33 of 33
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A Multiscale Model of the Enhanced Heat Transfer in a CNT-Nanofluid System
(2011)Over the last decade, much research has been done to understand the role of nanoparticles in heat transfer fluids. While experimental results have shown "anomalous" thermal enhancements and non-linear behavior with respect ... -
A Numerical Resistor Network Model for the Determination of Electrical Properties of Nanocomposites
(2011)This thesis introduces a comprehensive numerical model for the determination of the electrical properties of carbon nanotube reinforced polymer composites. Procedures of this model are based on a new spanning network ... -
Addition of a Magnetite Layer onto a Polysulfone Water Treatment Membrane to Enhance Virus Removal
(2012)The applicability of low-pressure membranes systems in distributed (point of use) water treatment is hindered by, among other things, their inability to remove potentially harmful viruses and ions via size exclusion. ... -
Assessing Photocatalytic Oxidation Using Modified TiO2 Nanomaterials for Virus Inactivation in Drinking Water: Mechanisms and Application
(2012-11-29)Photocatalytic oxidation is an alternative water treatment method under consideration for disinfecting water. Chlorine disinfection can form harmful byproducts, and some viruses (e.g. adenoviruses) are resistant to other ... -
Assessing Photocatalytic Oxidation Using Modified TiO2 Nanomaterials for Virus Inactivation in Drinking Water: Mechanisms and Application
(2013-06-05)Photocatalytic oxidation is an alternative water treatment method under consideration for disinfecting water. Chlorine disinfection can form harmful byproducts, and some viruses (e.g. adenoviruses) are resistant to other ... -
Bilayer Approaches for Nanoparticle Phase Transfer
(2012)Nanoparticles (NPs) are often synthesized in organic solvents due to advantages of superior size and shape control obtainable in a non-polar environment. However, many applications featuring NPs require them to be in aqueous ... -
Biodistribution of Cadmium Selenide/Zinc Sulfide Quantum Dots in Aquatic Organisms
(2011)This thesis investigates the biodistribution and toxicological effects of amphiphilic polymer coated CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) in two aquatic species, Daphnia magna (daphnia) and Danio rerio (zebrafish). The use of QDs ... -
Carbon Nanomaterials for Detection, Assessment and Purification of Oil and Natural Gas
(2014-04-21)This thesis studies several carbon nanomaterials. Their synthesis and characterization are studied as well as their potential applications to the oil industry. The carbon nanomaterials studied here include mesoporous carbon ... -
Carbon nanotube based hybrid nanostructures: Synthesis and applications
(2010)Hybrid nanostructures are fascinating materials for their promising applications in future nanoelectronics, electrical interconnects and energy storage devices. Practical ways of connecting individual carbon nanotubes to ... -
Catalytic processes simulated at nano-scale: Growth of graphitic structures and functionalized graphene explained
(2011)Key dynamic processes at nano-scale, such as graphene hydrogenation and fluorination, and carbon nanotube (CNT) growth, cannot be observed in situ in real time. Nevertheless, such processes can be studied through complementary ... -
Charge regulation in lipid membranes due to lipid mobility
(2010)Lipid bilayer membranes are ubiquitous in biology and electrostatics play a key role in their functionality. The interfacial electrostatics of lipid bilayers involves interplay between the surface potential and charge ... -
Coated Carbon Nanotubes and Carbon Fibers: Synthesis and Applications
(2011)Carbon nanotubes have been of great interest given their unique electronic and mechanical properties. Scholars have focused on the addition of carbon nanotubes to various matrices in order to develop novel materials. These ... -
Developing Novel Protein-based Materials using Ultrabithorax: Production, Characterization, and Functionalization
(2011)Compared to 'conventional' materials made from metal, glass, or ceramics, protein-based materials have unique mechanical properties. Furthermore, the morphology, mechanical properties, and functionality of protein-based ... -
Dimension Controlled Self-Assembly of Perylene Based Molecules
(2011)Recent advances in the self-assembly of highly organized structures of organic semiconducting molecules by controlled non-covalent interactions has opened avenues for creating materials with unique optical and electrical ... -
Electromechanical Investigation of Low Dimensional Nanomaterials for NEMS Applications
(2011)Successful operation of Nano-ElectroMechanical Systems (NEMS) critically depends on their working environment and component materials' electromechanical properties. It is equally important that ambient or liquid environment ... -
Functionalized Nanoparticles for Biomedical Applications
(2013-09-16)Functionalization of nanoparticles often control the extent of their usage. With this in mind, I have explored methods of creating highly functionalized exfoliated graphite, by way of the Billups-Birch reduction, that can ... -
Gold nanoshells for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy and drug delivery
(2012)Gold nanoshells are tunable plasmonic nanostructures consisting of spherical silica cores wrapped with thin layer of Au. Based on the size of the Au layer with respect to the silica core, gold nanoshells can resonantly ... -
Imaging and manipulating organometallic molecules by scanning tunneling microscopy
(2012)Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) we have explored complex surface adsorbed molecules, nanocars, on Au(111) and the parameters related to the direct translation of these molecules by the STM tip. Specifically, the ... -
In Situ Quantitative Mechanical Characterization and Integration of One Dimensional Metallic Nanostructures
(2011)One dimensional (1-D) metallic nanostructures (e.g. nanowires, nanorods) have stimulated great interest recently as important building blocks for future nanoscale electronic and electromechanical devices. In this thesis ... -
Interfacial Chemistry in Nanophotonics
(2012)Nanophotonics, especially plasmonics is a kind of very active research area, which deals with the interaction behavior between electromagnetic radiation and metallic nanostructures. It has attracted enormous attention over ... -
Investigation of graphitic nanostructures and nanomachines
(2010)Carbon allotropes such as nanotubes, graphene, and buckyball all preserve the same lattice structure. However, their electronic properties are very different depending on their dimensionality. These nanostructures can be ... -
Key steps towards carbon nanotube-based conductors
(2012)Making a robust carbon nanotube-based conductor as a replacement of copper in electricity grids can initiate a paradigm shift in energy transmission. This dissertation identifies four fundamental factors for making carbon ... -
Magneto-optical spectroscopy of metallic carbon nanotubes
(2010)Through polarization-dependent magneto-optical absorption spectroscopy, the magnetic susceptibility anisotropy for metallic single-walled carbon nanotubes has been extracted and found to be up to 4x greater than values for ... -
Mie and Finite-Element Simulations of the Optical and Plasmonic Properties of Micro- and Nanostructures
(2012)A Mie-based code is developed for multilayer concentric spheres. The code is used in conjunction with a finite-element package to investigate the plasmonic and optical properties of micro- and nanostructures. For plasmonic ... -
Nanoshells in vivo imaging using two-photon excitation microscopy
(2010)This thesis describes the development and optical characterization of near infrared (NIR) gold nanoshells for the use as luminescent contrast agents for applications in small animal blood vessel imaging. Two types of ... -
Numerical Modeling, Determination, and Characterization of Electrical Properties of Nanocomposites
(2011)A numerical model is presented for the determination of the electrical properties of carbon nanotube-based composites. The model incorporates several experimentally-based statistical distributions to account for the ... -
Optical Properties of Strongly Coupled Plasmon-Exciton Hybrid Nanostructures
(2012)Strongly coupled plasmon-exciton hybrid nanostructures are fabricated and their optical properties are studied. The plasmonic and excitonic systems are gold nanoshells and J-aggregates, respectively. Gold nanoshells are ... -
Optical Spectroscopy of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Under Extreme Conditions
(2012)Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) are one of the leading candidate materials to realize novel nanoscale photonic devices. In order to assess their performance characteristics as optoelectronic materials, it is crucial ... -
Plasmon hybridization in real metals
(2012)By treating free electrons in metallic nanostructures as incompressible and irrotational fluid, Plasmon hybridization (PH) method can be used as a very useful tool in interpolating the electric magnetic behaviors of complex ... -
Plasmonic Manipulation of Light for Sensing and Photovoltaic Applications
(2012)Plasmonics is a successful new field of science and technology that exploits the exclusive optical properties of metallic nanostructures to manipulate and concentrate light at nano-meter length scales. When light hits the ... -
Polyethyleneimine functionalized nano-carbons for the absorption of carbon dioxide
(2012)The evolution of nanotechnology over the past 20 years has allowed researchers to use a wide variety of techniques and instruments to synthesize and characterize new materials on the nano scale. Due to their size, these ... -
Towards Photocurrent Production By Gold Nanoarrays with Self-Assembled Monolayer Coatings
(2011)This thesis proposes to use optical rectennae (rectifying antennae) for generating electricity by harvesting solar energy. Rectennae have theoretical efficiency over 90%, well above that of current photovoltaic devices. ... -
Water-phase synthesis of cationic silica/polyamine nanoparticles
(2012)Functionalizing surfaces with amine groups through the hydrolytic condensation of aminotrialkoxysilanes is a typical approach when modifying silica particles for use in bioimaging, enzyme immobilization, and other applications. ...
