My current research involvement with the VESCA group covers the following fields.

Under Prof. Charles Fortmann (Applied Math and Statistic Department):

My main field of research in the Materials Science Department involves the study and devolopment of optical waveguides in amorphous silicon to use in opto-electronic devies.

This cross-departamental collaboration involves two graduate students from the Materials Science Department (Samrat Chawda and myself), the AMS department and CAT Center. The fulcrum of our work resides on the idea the the intrinsic structural properties of amorphous silicon makes it easy to modify its optical properties.

a) Hydrogen dependance in aSi:H refractive index.	b) Possible opto-acoustical signal modulator.

The previous images shows the linear relation between hydrogen concentration and refractive index (a). We plan to use this effects to custom engineer the optical waveguides in slab films of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (aSi:H) by hydrogen implantation. The second image (b) shows our prototype design of optical-optical signal modulator mediated by phonon exchange.

 

Under Prof. Clive Clayton:

Part of my activities deal with the study of resin bases epoxy materials for usage in ship hull contruction materials. The scopy of this study deals with changes on the epoxy caused by different enviromental conditions such as: humidity, ultra-violet radiation, salinity, etc.

a) West System's epoxy components.	b) Sample microtomed slices and bulk epoxy sample.

Our resin epoxy samples are fabricated my mixing a 3-to-1 mix of "105 resin" and "209 hardener" from West Systems. Our initial work included the comparisson between the Raman and FTIR spectra of both the epoxy and its individua resin and hardener components. We expect to identiy the individual signatures of the resin and the hardener in the epoxy.

We are also studying the properties of carbon fiber composites.

a) Fiber composite sample	b)SEM imagery of individual carbon fiber

 

Under Prof. Gary Halada:

With Samrat Chawda we are working on the characterization of visco-elasctic materials provided by a Manufacturing Company. The goal is this study is to understand the dampening properties of the material

The previous image shows the characteristic behavior of visco-elasctic materials under cyclic load. As we can see there is phase delay between the load and unload curve. This phase delay is what causes the dampening of non-driven oscillations useful.

This image shows more clearly the phase change between the load and the strain.