Balancing Berkeley: A Case Study Exploration of Black Student Experiences at Elite Universities

A qualitative study examining the individual and personal definitions of college success from the perspective of Black students at predominantly White and elite institutions. Using students from the University of California, Berkeley as a snapshot of the larger institutional context, this thesis centers the experiences of Black undergraduate students to discuss equity and student success. The university’s written texts, reports and survey results were examined regarding diversity and interpreted to reveal patterns in subtext and narrative about commitments to success and compared to that of the students’ experiences. Emergent themes included: isolation and sense of belonging, race relations including intra group differences, and community support. Findings offer insight into how Black students at Berkeley understand college success and the influence of race in navigating an elite university context. Implications are presented for higher education and student affairs professionals and recommendations for the field are discussed

Full Hydrodynamic Model of Nonlinear Electromagnetic Response in Metallic Metamaterials

Applications of metallic metamaterials have generated significant interest in recent years. Electromagnetic behavior of metamaterials in the optical range is usually characterized by a local-linear response. In this article, we develop a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) solution of the hydrodynamic model that describes a free electron gas in metals. Extending beyond the local-linear response, the hydrodynamic model enables numerical investigation of nonlocal and nonlinear interactions between electromagnetic waves and metallic metamaterials. By explicitly imposing the current continuity constraint, the proposed model is solved in a self-consistent manner. Charge, energy and angular momentum conservation laws of high-order harmonic generation have been demonstrated for the first time by the Maxwell-hydrodynamic FDTD model. The model yields nonlinear optical responses for complex metallic metamaterials irradiated by a variety of waveforms. Consequently, the multiphysics model opens up unique opportunities for characterizing and designing nonlinear nanodevices.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure

Thermal effects on lattice strain in hcp Fe under pressure

We compute the c/a lattice strain versus temperature for nonmagnetic hcp iron at high pressures using both first-principles linear response quasiharmonic calculations based on the full potential linear-muffin-tin-orbital (LMTO) method and the particle-in-cell (PIC) model for the vibrational partition function using a tight-binding total-energy method. The tight-binding model shows excellent agreement with the all-electron LMTO method. When hcp structure is stable, the calculated geometric mean frequency and Helmholtz free energy of hcp Fe from PIC and linear response lattice dynamics agree very well, as does the axial ratio as a function of temperature and pressure. On-site anharmonicity proves to be small up to the melting temperature, and PIC gives a good estimate of its sign and magnitude. At low pressures, hcp Fe becomes dynamically unstable at large c/a ratios, and the PIC model might fail where the structure approaches lattice instability. The PIC approximation describes well the vibrational behavior away from the instability, and thus is a reasonable approach to compute high temperature properties of materials. Our results show significant differences from earlier PIC studies, which gave much larger axial ratio increases with increasing temperature, or reported large differences between PIC and lattice dynamics results.Comment: 9 figure

Variable gain intelligent control of Multi-motor Synchronization system

2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Refereed conference paperVersion of RecordPublishe

Directional far-field response of a spherical nanoantenna

We study the directional far-field response of a spherical nanoantenna via engineering the plasmonic nanosphere's distance, size, and material. A unified pattern synthesis approach based on the T-matrix method and the particle swarm optimization is proposed for the directional beamforming of the nanoantenna. The angular response of the directional nanoantenna is very sensitive to the material change but is immunized to the random error of the spatial position of each particle. The physical origin of the high directionality is attributed to the coherent near-field distribution with large correlation length. This work provides the fundamental theory and physics for future nanoantenna design. © 2011 Optical Society of America.published_or_final_versio

Mixing of spin and orbital angular momenta via second-harmonic generation in plasmonic and dielectric chiral nanostructures

We present a theoretical study of the characteristics of the nonlinear spin-orbital angular momentum coupling induced by second-harmonic generation in plasmonic and dielectric nanostructures made of centrosymmetric materials. In particular, the connection between the phase singularities and polarization helicities in the longitudinal components of the fundamental and second-harmonic optical fields and the scatterer symmetry properties are discussed. By in-depth comparison between the interaction of structured optical beams with plasmonic and dielectric nanostructures, we have found that all-dielectric and plasmonic nanostructures that exhibit magnetic and electric resonances have comparable second-harmonic conversion efficiency. In addition, mechanisms for second-harmonic enhancement for single and chiral clusters of scatterers are unveiled and the relationships between the content of optical angular momentum of the incident optical beams and the enhancement of nonlinear light scattering is discussed. In particular, we formulate a general angular momenta conservation law for the nonlinear spin-orbital angular momentum interaction, which includes the quasi-angular-momentum of chiral structures with different-order rotational symmetry. As a key conclusion of our study relevant to nanophotonics, we argue that all-dielectric nanostructures provide a more suitable platform to investigate experimentally the nonlinear interaction between spin and orbital angular momenta, as compared to plasmonic ones, chiefly due to their narrower resonance peaks, lower intrinsic losses, and higher sustainable optical power

Ferromagnetism in 2p Light Element-Doped II-oxide and III-nitride Semiconductors

II-oxide and III-nitride semiconductors doped by nonmagnetic 2p light elements are investigated as potential dilute magnetic semiconductors (DMS). Based on our first-principle calculations, nitrogen doped ZnO, carbon doped ZnO, and carbon doped AlN are predicted to be ferromagnetic. The ferromagnetism of such DMS materials can be attributed to a p-d exchange-like p-p coupling interaction which is derived from the similar symmetry and wave function between the impurity (p-like t_2) and valence (p) states. We also propose a co-doping mechanism, using beryllium and nitrogen as dopants in ZnO, to enhance the ferromagnetic coupling and to increase the solubility and activity