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Scholarly Works (4 results)

  • Thesis
  • Peer Reviewed
UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2013)

Spontaneous Emission Rate Enhancement Using Optical Antennas

by Nikhil Kumar

Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering - Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California, Berkeley

Professor Eli Yablonovitch, Chair

The miniaturization of electronics has relentlessly followed Moore's law for the past several decades, allowing greater computational power and interconnectivity than ever before. However, limitations on power consumption on chip have put practical limits on speed. This dissertation describes the role that optical antennas can play in reducing power consumption and increasing efficiency and speed for on-chip optical interconnects.

High speed optical communication has been dependent on the laser for its narrow linewidth and high modulation bandwidth. It has long outperformed the LED for both practical reasons and very suitable physical characteristics. Lasers however have some downsides when considering short distance communications which may not require narrow linewidths. Typically, they require high powers, take up more space and the rate is inherently limited by gain saturation. Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the other hand are limited by spontaneous emission, a rate that is dependent upon its electromagnetic environment. The use of metallic optical nano-antennas can significantly increase a light emitters coupling to its environment and potentially achieve a rate orders of magnitude faster than stimulated emission. Coupling a light emitter into an efficient nano-optical antenna serves three purposes - 1) a much faster modulation speed can be achieved due to a faster rate of spontaneous emission, 2) the footprint of such a device would be shrunk to the nano-scale, ultimately necessary for large scale integration and 3) the overall efficiency of the emitter can be increased.

While the main motivation behind this work is for short distance communications, optical antennas can serve in a host of applications including photodetectors, solar cells, nano-imaging, bio-sensing and data storage.

In this thesis we derive the theory behind optical antennas and experimentally show an enhanced spontaneous emission rate.

    Cover page: Spontaneous Emission Rate Enhancement Using Optical Antennas
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    UC Davis Previously Published Works (2023)
    Climate change significantly impacts the global hydrological cycle, leading to pronounced shifts in hydroclimatic extremes such as increased duration, occurrence, and intensity. Despite these significant changes, our understanding of hydroclimatic risks and hydrological resilience remains limited, particularly at the catchment scale in peninsular India. This study aims to address this gap by examining hydroclimatic extremes and resilience in 54 peninsular catchments from 1988 to 2011. We initially assess extreme precipitation and discharge indices and estimate design return levels using non-stationary Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) models that use global climate modes (ENSO, IOD, and AMO) as covariates. Further, hydrological resilience is evaluated using a convex model that inputs simulated discharge from the best hydrological model among SVM, RVM, random forest, and a conceptual model (abcd). Our analysis shows that the spatial patterns of mean extreme precipitation indices (R1 and R5) mostly resemble with extreme discharge indices (Q1 and Q5). Additionally, all extreme indices, including R1, Q1, R5, and Q5, demonstrate non-stationary behavior, indicating the substantial influence of global climate modes on extreme precipitation and flooding across the catchments. Our results indicate that the random forest model outperforms the others. Furthermore, we find that 68.52% of the catchments exhibit low to moderate hydrological resilience. Our findings emphasize the importance of understanding hydroclimatic risks and catchment resilience for accurate climate change impact predictions and effective adaptation strategies.
      Cover page: Understanding non-stationarity of hydroclimatic extremes and resilience in Peninsular catchments, India.
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      UC San Diego Previously Published Works (2020)

      Purpose

      Treatment of children with CNS tumors (CNSTs) demands a complex, interdisciplinary approach that is rarely available in low- and middle-income countries. We established the Cross-Border Neuro-Oncology Program (CBNP) between Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego (RCHSD), and Hospital General, Tijuana (HGT), Mexico, to provide access to neuro-oncology care, including neurosurgic services, for children with CNSTs diagnosed at HGT. Our purpose was to assess the feasibility of the CBNP across the United States-Mexico border and improve survival for children with CNSTs at HGT by implementing the CBNP.

      Patients and methods

      We prospectively assessed clinicopathologic profiles, the extent of resection, progression-free survival, and overall survival (OS) in children with CNSTs at HGT from 2010 to 2017.

      Results

      Sixty patients with CNSTs participated in the CBNP during the study period. The most common diagnoses were low-grade glioma (24.5%) and medulloblastoma (22.4%). Of patients who were eligible for surgery, 49 underwent resection at RCHSD and returned to HGT for collaborative management. Gross total resection was achieved in 78% of cases at RCHSD compared with 0% at HGT (P < .001) and was a predictor of 5-year OS (hazard ratio, 0.250; 95% CI, 0.067 to 0.934; P = .024). Five-year OS improved from 0% before 2010 to 52% in 2017.

      Conclusion

      The CBNP facilitated access to complex neuro-oncology care for underserved children in Mexico through binational exchanges of resources and expertise. Survival for patients in the CBNP dramatically improved. Gross total resection at RCHSD was associated with higher OS, highlighting the critical role of experienced neurosurgeons in the treatment of CNSTs. The CBNP model offers an attractive alternative for children with CNSTs in low- and middle-income countries who require complex neuro-oncology care, particularly those in close proximity to institutions in high-income countries with extensive neuro-oncology expertise.
        Cover page: Improving Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Survival Disparities in the United States–Mexico Border Region: A Cross-Border Initiative Between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        UCLA Previously Published Works (2018)
        Enrichment methodologies enable the analysis of minor members in multi-species transcriptomic data. We compared the standard enrichment of bacterial and eukaryotic mRNA to a targeted enrichment using an Agilent SureSelect (AgSS) capture for Brugia malayi, Aspergillus fumigatus, and the Wolbachia endosymbiont of B. malayi (wBm). Without introducing significant systematic bias, the AgSS quantitatively enriched samples, resulting in more reads mapping to the target organism. The AgSS-enriched libraries consistently had a positive linear correlation with their unenriched counterparts (r2 = 0.559-0.867). Up to a 2,242-fold enrichment of RNA from the target organism was obtained following a power law (r2 = 0.90), with the greatest fold enrichment achieved in samples with the largest ratio difference between the major and minor members. While using a single total library for prokaryote and eukaryote enrichment from a single RNA sample could be beneficial for samples where RNA is limiting, we observed a decrease in reads mapping to protein coding genes and an increase in multi-mapping reads to rRNAs in AgSS enrichments from eukaryotic total RNA libraries compared to eukaryotic poly(A)-enriched libraries. Our results support a recommendation of using AgSS targeted enrichment on poly(A)-enriched libraries for eukaryotic captures, and total RNA libraries for prokaryotic captures, to increase the robustness of multi-species transcriptomic studies.
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