Matching Items (320)
Description
Demand for biosensor research applications is growing steadily. According to a new report by Frost & Sullivan, the biosensor market is expected to reach $14.42 billion by 2016. Clinical diagnostic applications continue to be the largest market for biosensors, and this demand is likely to continue through 2016 and beyond. Biosensor technology for use in clinical diagnostics, however, requires translational research that moves bench science and theoretical knowledge toward marketable products. Despite the high volume of academic research to date, only a handful of biomedical devices have become viable commercial applications. Academic research must increase its focus on practical uses for biosensors. This dissertation is an example of this increased focus, and discusses work to advance microfluidic-based protein biosensor technologies for practical use in clinical diagnostics. Four areas of work are discussed: The first involved work to develop reusable/reconfigurable biosensors that are useful in applications like biochemical science and analytical chemistry that require detailed sensor calibration. This work resulted in a prototype sensor and an in-situ electrochemical surface regeneration technique that can be used to produce microfluidic-based reusable biosensors. The second area of work looked at non-specific adsorption (NSA) of biomolecules, which is a persistent challenge in conventional microfluidic biosensors. The results of this work produced design methods that reduce the NSA. The third area of work involved a novel microfluidic sensing platform that was designed to detect target biomarkers using competitive protein adsorption. This technique uses physical adsorption of proteins to a surface rather than complex and time-consuming immobilization procedures. This method enabled us to selectively detect a thyroid cancer biomarker, thyroglobulin, in a controlled-proteins cocktail and a cardiovascular biomarker, fibrinogen, in undiluted human serum. The fourth area of work involved expanding the technique to produce a unique protein identification method; Pattern-recognition. A sample mixture of proteins generates a distinctive composite pattern upon interaction with a sensing platform consisting of multiple surfaces whereby each surface consists of a distinct type of protein pre-adsorbed on the surface. The utility of the "pattern-recognition" sensing mechanism was then verified via recognition of a particular biomarker, C-reactive protein, in the cocktail sample mixture.
ContributorsChoi, Seokheun (Author) / Chae, Junseok (Thesis advisor) / Tao, Nongjian (Committee member) / Yu, Hongyu (Committee member) / Forzani, Erica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
A wireless hybrid device for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) has been developed. The device combines a highly selective and sensitive tuning-fork based detector with a pre-concentrator and a separation column. The selectivity and sensitivity of the tuning-fork based detector is optimized for discrimination and quantification of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) via a homemade molecular imprinted polymer, and a specific detection and control circuit. The device is a wireless, portable, battery-powered, and cell-phone operated device. The device has been calibrated and validated in the laboratory and using selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SFIT-MS). The capability and robustness are also demonstrated in some field tests. It provides rapid and reliable detection of BTEX in real samples, including challenging high concentrations of interferents, and it is suitable for occupational, environmental health and epidemiological applications.
ContributorsChen, Zheng (Author) / Tao, Nongjian (Thesis advisor) / Chae, Junseok (Committee member) / Forzani, Erica (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Temporary bonding-debonding of flexible plastic substrates to rigid carriers may facilitate effective substrate handling by automated tools for manufacture of flexible microelectronics. The primary challenges in implementing practical temporary bond-debond technology originate from the stress that is developed during high temperature processing predominately through thermal-mechanical property mismatches between carrier, adhesive and substrate. These stresses are relaxed through bowing of the bonded system (substrate-adhesive-carrier), which causes wafer handling problems, or through delamination of substrate from rigid carrier. Another challenge inherent to flexible plastic substrates and linked to stress is their dimensional instability, which may manifest itself in irreversible deformation upon heating and cooling cycles. Dimensional stability is critical to ensure precise registration of different layers during photolithography. The global objective of this work is to determine comprehensive experimental characterization and develop underlying fundamental engineering concept that could enable widespread adoption and scale-up of temporary bonding processing protocols for flexible microelectronics manufacturing. A series of carriers with different coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), modulus and thickness were investigated to correlate the thermo-mechanical properties of carrier with deformation behavior of bonded systems. The observed magnitude of system bow scaled with properties of carriers according to well-established Stoney's equation. In addition, rheology of adhesive impacted the deformation of bonded system. In particular, distortion-bowing behavior correlated directly with the relative loss factor of adhesive and flexible plastic substrate. Higher loss factor of adhesive compared to that of substrate allowed the stress to be relaxed with less bow, but led to significantly greater dimensional distortion. Conversely, lower loss factor of adhesive allowed less distortion but led to larger wafer bow. A finite element model using ANSYS was developed to predict the trend in bow-distortion of bonded systems as a function of the viscoelastic properties of adhesive. Inclusion of the viscoelasticity of flexible plastic substrate itself was critical to achieving good agreement between simulation and experiment. Simulation results showed that there is a limited range within which tuning the rheology of adhesive can control the stress-distortion. Therefore, this model can aid in design of new adhesive formulations compatible with different processing requirements of various flexible microelectronics applications.
ContributorsHaq, Jesmin (Author) / Raupp, Gregory B (Thesis advisor) / Vogt, Bryan D (Thesis advisor) / Dai, Lenore (Committee member) / Loy, Douglas (Committee member) / Li, Jian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This thesis describes several approaches to next generation DNA sequencing via tunneling current method based on a Scanning Tunneling Microscope system. In chapters 5 and 6, preliminary results have shown that DNA bases could be identified by their characteristic tunneling signals. Measurements taken in aqueous buffered solution showed that single base resolution could be achieved with economic setups. In chapter 7, it is illustrated that some ongoing measurements are indicating the sequence readout by making linear scan on a piece of short DNA oligomer. However, to overcome the difficulties of controlling DNA especially ssDNA movement, it is much better to have the tunneling measurement incorporated onto a robust nanopore device to realize sequential reading of the DNA sequence while it is being translocated.
ContributorsHuang, Shuo (Author) / Lindsay, Stuart (Thesis advisor) / Sankey, Otto (Committee member) / Tao, Nongjian (Committee member) / Drucker, Jeff (Committee member) / Ros, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Dual-wavelength laser sources have various existing and potential applications in wavelength division multiplexing, differential techniques in spectroscopy for chemical sensing, multiple-wavelength interferometry, terahertz-wave generation, microelectromechanical systems, and microfluidic lab-on-chip systems. In the drive for ever smaller and increasingly mobile electronic devices, dual-wavelength coherent light output from a single semiconductor laser diode would enable further advances and deployment of these technologies. The output of conventional laser diodes is however limited to a single wavelength band with a few subsequent lasing modes depending on the device design. This thesis investigates a novel semiconductor laser device design with a single cavity waveguide capable of dual-wavelength laser output with large spectral separation. The novel dual-wavelength semiconductor laser diode uses two shorter- and longer-wavelength active regions that have separate electron and hole quasi-Fermi energy levels and carrier distributions. The shorter-wavelength active region is based on electrical injection as in conventional laser diodes, and the longer-wavelength active region is then pumped optically by the internal optical field of the shorter-wavelength laser mode, resulting in stable dual-wavelength laser emission at two different wavelengths quite far apart. Different designs of the device are studied using a theoretical model developed in this work to describe the internal optical pumping scheme. The carrier transport and separation of the quasi-Fermi distributions are then modeled using a software package that solves Poisson's equation and the continuity equations to simulate semiconductor devices. Three different designs are grown using molecular beam epitaxy, and broad-area-contact laser diodes are processed using conventional methods. The modeling and experimental results of the first generation design indicate that the optical confinement factor of the longer-wavelength active region is a critical element in realizing dual-wavelength laser output. The modeling predicts lower laser thresholds for the second and third generation designs; however, the experimental results of the second and third generation devices confirm challenges related to the epitaxial growth of the structures in eventually demonstrating dual-wavelength laser output.
ContributorsGreen, Benjamin C (Author) / Zhang, Yong-Hang (Thesis advisor) / Ning, Cun-Zheng (Committee member) / Tao, Nongjian (Committee member) / Roedel, Ronald J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Nanofluidic devices in which one single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) spans a barrier between two fluid reservoirs were constructed, enabling direct electrical measurement of the transport of ions and molecules. Ion current through these devices is about 2 orders of magnitude larger than that predicted from the bulk resistivity of the electrolyte. Electroosmosis drives excess current, carried by cations, and is found to be the origin of giant ionic current through SWCNT as shown by building an ionic field-effect transistor with a gate electrode embedded in the fluid barrier. Wetting of inside of the semi-conducting SWCNT by water showed the change of its electronic property, turning the electronic SWCNT field-effect transistor to "on" state. These findings provide a new method to investigate and control the ion and molecule behavior at nanoscale.
ContributorsPang, Pei (Author) / Lindsay, Stuart (Thesis advisor) / Ros, Robert (Committee member) / Shumway, John (Committee member) / Tao, Nongjian (Committee member) / Menéndez, Jose (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In this thesis I introduce a new direction to computing using nonlinear chaotic dynamics. The main idea is rich dynamics of a chaotic system enables us to (1) build better computers that have a flexible instruction set, and (2) carry out computation that conventional computers are not good at it. Here I start from the theory, explaining how one can build a computing logic block using a chaotic system, and then I introduce a new theoretical analysis for chaos computing. Specifically, I demonstrate how unstable periodic orbits and a model based on them explains and predicts how and how well a chaotic system can do computation. Furthermore, since unstable periodic orbits and their stability measures in terms of eigenvalues are extractable from experimental times series, I develop a time series technique for modeling and predicting chaos computing from a given time series of a chaotic system. After building a theoretical framework for chaos computing I proceed to architecture of these chaos-computing blocks to build a sophisticated computing system out of them. I describe how one can arrange and organize these chaos-based blocks to build a computer. I propose a brand new computer architecture using chaos computing, which shifts the limits of conventional computers by introducing flexible instruction set. Our new chaos based computer has a flexible instruction set, meaning that the user can load its desired instruction set to the computer to reconfigure the computer to be an implementation for the desired instruction set. Apart from direct application of chaos theory in generic computation, the application of chaos theory to speech processing is explained and a novel application for chaos theory in speech coding and synthesizing is introduced. More specifically it is demonstrated how a chaotic system can model the natural turbulent flow of the air in the human speech production system and how chaotic orbits can be used to excite a vocal tract model. Also as another approach to build computing system based on nonlinear system, the idea of Logical Stochastic Resonance is studied and adapted to an autoregulatory gene network in the bacteriophage λ.
ContributorsKia, Behnam (Author) / Ditto, William (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Liang (Committee member) / Lai, Ying-Cheng (Committee member) / Helms Tillery, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Advanced composites are being widely used in aerospace applications due to their high stiffness, strength and energy absorption capabilities. However, the assurance of structural reliability is a critical issue because a damage event will compromise the integrity of composite structures and lead to ultimate failure. In this dissertation a novel homogenization based multiscale modeling framework using semi-analytical micromechanics is presented to simulate the response of textile composites. The novelty of this approach lies in the three scale homogenization/localization framework bridging between the constituent (micro), the fiber tow scale (meso), weave scale (macro), and the global response. The multiscale framework, named Multiscale Generalized Method of Cells (MSGMC), continuously bridges between the micro to the global scale as opposed to approaches that are top-down and bottom-up. This framework is fully generalized and capable of modeling several different weave and braids without reformulation. Particular emphasis in this dissertation is placed on modeling the nonlinearity and failure of both polymer matrix and ceramic matrix composites.
ContributorsLiu, Guang (Author) / Chattopadhyay, Aditi (Thesis advisor) / Mignolet, Marc (Committee member) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Li, Jian (Committee member) / Rajadas, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In this project, a novel method is presented for measuring the resistivity of nanoscale metallic conductors (nanowires) using a variable-spacing 2-point method with a modified ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscope. An auxiliary field emission imaging method that allows for scanning insulating surfaces using a large gap distance (20nm) is also presented. Using these methods, the resistivity of self-assembled endotaxial FeSi2 nanowires (NWs) on Si(110) was measured. The resistivity was found to vary inversely with NW width, being rhoNW = 200 uOhm cm at 12 nm and 300 uOhm cm at 2 nm. The increase at small w is attributed to boundary scattering, and is fit to the Fuchs-Sondheimer model, yielding values of rho0 = 150 uOhm cm and lambda = 2.4 nm, for specularity parameter p = 0.5. These results are attributed to a high concentration of point defects in the FeSi2 structure, with a correspondingly short inelastic electron scattering length. It is remarkable that the defect concentration persists in very small structures, and is not changed by surface oxidation.
ContributorsTobler, Samuel (Author) / Bennett, Peter (Thesis advisor) / McCartney, Martha (Committee member) / Tao, Nongjian (Committee member) / Doak, Bruce (Committee member) / Chen, Tingyong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Damage assessment and residual useful life estimation (RULE) are essential for aerospace, civil and naval structures. Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) attempts to automate the process of damage detection and identification. Multiscale modeling is a key element in SHM. It not only provides important information on the physics of failure, such as damage initiation and growth, the output can be used as "virtual sensing" data for detection and prognosis. The current research is part of an ongoing multidisciplinary effort to develop an integrated SHM framework for metallic aerospace components. In this thesis a multiscale model has been developed by bridging the relevant length scales, micro, meso and macro (or structural scale). Micro structural representations obtained from material characterization studies are used to define the length scales and to capture the size and orientation of the grains at the micro level. Parametric studies are conducted to estimate material parameters used in this constitutive model. Numerical and experimental simulations are performed to investigate the effects of Representative Volume Element (RVE) size, defect area fraction and distribution. A multiscale damage criterion accounting for crystal orientation effect is developed. This criterion is applied for fatigue crack initial stage prediction. A damage evolution rule based on strain energy density is modified to incorporate crystal plasticity at the microscale (local). Optimization approaches are used to calculate global damage index which is used for the RVE failure prediciton. Potential cracking directions are provided from the damage criterion simultaneously. A wave propagation model is incorporated with the damage model to detect changes in sensing signals due to plastic deformation and damage growth.
ContributorsLuo, Chuntao (Author) / Chattopadhyay, Aditi (Thesis advisor) / Papandreou-Suppappola, Antonia (Committee member) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Dai, Lenore (Committee member) / Li, Jian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011