Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy Graduate Theses
Recent Submissions
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Atmospheric Dependence of Fractoluminescence and Phononic Emissions in Inorganic Scintillator Fractures
Background signals in particle detectors can originate from several categories of sources, including radioactivity found in the detector or its housing and cosmic radiations. High energy physics relies heavily on the use ... -
Nonlinear Response of Monolayer Graphene to THz Frequency Radiation
Graphene, as a zero-bandgap two-dimensional semiconductor with a linear electron band dispersion near the Dirac points, has potential to exhibit very interesting nonlinear optical properties. In particular, third harmonic ... -
Theory and Modelling of Pulse-Driven Quantum Dots in Nanophotonic Structures
Quantum dots (QDs) integrated in nanophotonic environments provide an excellent platform for quantum information technologies and engineerable light-matter interactions. One application is a solid-state single photon source ... -
Computing Rovibrational Spectra of Small Polyatomic Molecules with Variational and Collocation Methods
It is well-known that some deuterated isotopologues of interstellar molecules achieve a significantly higher deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio than the natural elemental abundance. CH3+ and its deuterated isotopologues are thought ... -
Fabrication, Photoluminescence, and Electrical Measurements of Molybdenum DiSulphide Films and Heterostructures
Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) exhibit unique optical and electronic properties that make them highly appealing to the scientific community. Like graphene, they have strong in-plane bonds allowing for easy fabrication ... -
Evolving Galactic Dynamos and Fits to the Reversing Rotation Measures in Edge-On Galaxies
Rotation measure (RM) synthesis maps of NGC 4631 by Mora-Partiarroyo et al. (2018) show remarkable sign reversals on kpc scales as the distance from the minor axis increases in the northern halo of the galaxy. RM maps for ... -
Commissioning of an Upgraded Equinox-100 Cobalt-60 Radiation Therapy Unit in the Varian Eclipse Treatment Planning System
The introduction of Cobalt 60 (Co 60) units in the 1950s established megavoltage radiation therapy worldwide. Unfortunately, advances for the Co 60 radiation treatment units were not heavily pursued over the years and Co ... -
Suppression of the Efficiency Roll-Off Characteristics in Solution-Processed Lanthanide-based Organic Light-Emitting Diodes
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have gained a tremendous amount of interest, due to their applications in display and solid-state lighting technologies. This interest mainly arises from the easy and inexpensive ... -
Studies on Optically Induced DC-Voltage in Thin Film Structures
Conversion of light into direct current is important for applications ranging from energy conversion to photodetection. However, there are still many challenges to reach high conversion efficiency and broad spectral coverage. ... -
Analysis of Radio Spectral Indices in the CHANG-ES Galaxy Sample
The spectral index of a galaxy provides insight on the processes occurring within the galaxy, and can give hints to how the cosmic ray electrons propagate through the galaxy. Band-to-band spectral index maps provide a ... -
Non-circular flows in HIghMass Galaxies in a Test of the Late Accretion Hypothesis
This thesis investigates the late accretion hypothesis as an explanation for the unusual gas-richness of the HIghMass sample, a collection of 34 galaxies from the recently completed Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA survey. Accretion ... -
Monte Carlo modelling and optimisation of flattening filters for a novel Co-60 total body irradiation unit
Total body irradiation (TBI) is used in the treatment of certain types of blood cancers. It involves irradiating the whole body of the patient with high energy x-rays or gamma rays in order to kill cancer cells and suppress ... -
Application and Development of Algebraic Reconstruction Algorithms for High Dose Rate Brachytherapy Gel Dosimetry with Optical Computed Tomography Readout
Radiation therapy treatment techniques have become more complex to offer optimal tumour control while preserving patient quality of life by avoiding damage to healthy tissue. This increased complexity requires more thorough ... -
Cryogenic Alkali Halide Scintillators for Rare-Event Searches
Rare-event searches such as the direct detection of dark matter require very low backgrounds, as well as large volumes of material because of the low rate of signal. Scintillators are an excellent particle detector candidate ... -
Phenomenological Studies and Analysis Techniques to Search for Light Dark Matter With NEWS-G
The NEWS-G collaboration uses gas-filled Spherical Proportional Counters (SPCs) to search for low-mass dark matter. As one of several competing collaborations pushing the low-energy frontier of particle detection technology, ... -
A Numerical Investigation of the Impact of Inclinations on the Estimates of Photometric and Dynamical Properties of Galaxies
We exploit N-body simulations (GalactICS, Illustris, NIHAO) to study the impact of inclination on the estimates on various photometric and spectroscopic quantities of galaxies such as sizes, surface brightnesses, stellar ... -
Corrections to Signal Saturation on the DEAP-3600 Dark Matter Search
Dark matter is currently a topic at the frontier of astroparticle physics research. Its discovery or refutation would have profound implications for particle physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. There are numerous experiments ... -
The Quenching of Cluster Galaxies
In this thesis we present two projects investigating the evolution and quenching of cluster galaxy star formation (SF) activity. Leveraging a sample of 36 galaxy clusters, we measure the level of member SF activity. Over ... -
Measurement of Cosmogenic Production Rates in Ge with CDMSlite
The majority of matter in the Universe is non-luminous, non-baryonic, and as of yet undiscovered. The SuperCDMS experiment searches for this "dark matter" in the form of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), operating ... -
From Surface Events in DEAP-3600 to the Radial Acceleration Relation in Spiral Galaxies
One of the most outstanding mysteries in the Universe is the nature of dark matter. In this thesis, two unique projects that focus on understanding dark matter are presented. First, Machine Learning is used to detect ...
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