​guiding light
down the tube, can fingerprint
the molecule
​
Sasani Jayawardhana
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

​Dissertation title: Development of Optical Fibre Chemical Probes by Oblique Angle Deposition
The work involved the development of an optical fibre chemical sensor based on the technique of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). SERS relies on the close interaction between the target analyte molecule and a nanostructured metal surface. This nanostructure was fabricated using the method of oblique angle deposition (OAD) under thermal evaporation.

​light and matter flirt
years pass in femtoseconds
a bond is broken
​
Adi Natan
Weizmann Institute of Science

​My dissertation is about quantum control of atoms and small molecule using intense femtosecond laser pulses. Ever since the invention of the laser, physicists and chemists have aspired to utilize its unique properties to control photochemical reactions selectively and efficiently. In the research described in my thesis I have studied and controlled various aspects of intense light matter interaction. In particular, dissociation processes of diatomic molecules, strong field coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) in traces of solids, and strong field two-photon absorption in atomic systems.

​Oh resonator
Ring tuned on chip by EWOD
Water filtered light
​
Romi Shamai
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

EWOD (pronounced E-WOD, like e-book) – electrowetting on dielectrics, an electrical method for translating and deforming the shape of droplets, is used to tune an on chip micro ring resonator (change the attenuated wavelength of this optical filter) through controlling its coverage by a droplet of water. Read more about my master’s thesis: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-17-2-1116

​Pieces from above
Assembled by strength to be as one
Lightening the big dark
​
Dori Reichmann
Weizmann Institute of Science

​My dissertation is about the microscopical physics of black holes. As part of a greater effort to use String theory methods to give a first principle derivation for thermodynamical behavior of black holes. The first part focuses on a phase transition in a class of black holes known as BTZ. The second part focuses on the emergence of entropy at zero temperature for a class of black hole know as SUSY-ADS5.

​By index guiding,
single mode propagates in,
Mid-IR wide band
​
Arnon Millo
Tel Aviv University, Israel

​Design, fabrication and optical testing of endlessly single-mode, silver-halides, photonic crystal, index guiding fibers, for the mid-IR. With a wide spectral band and large mode area.

​ytterbium,
do you see the flow of time?
firefly in the dark
​
Reina Maruyama
University of Washington, Seattle

​Dissertation Title: “Optical Trapping of Ytterbium Atoms”
I was trying to see if ytterbium atoms can be optically trapped, and if so, determine whether a sensitive search for violation of time reversal symmetry can be carried out using the trapped ytterbium atoms. In most cases, if you took movies of interactions among elementary particles, the interaction you see by playing the movie both forward and backward would look like they follow the same set of rules, and you wouldn’t be able to tell whether the movie is playing backward or forward. We are looking for interactions that look like they don’t follow the same set of rules depending on which way you play the movie, therefore you would be able to tell which way the movie is running. It turns out, you can trap ytterbium, and they glow like fireflies, but the time reversal symmetry experiment is damn difficult.

​Pions and protons
and then some. Oh my! Spectra
are hard to come by
​
Jennifer Klay
University of California, Davis

​Dissertation Title: “Transverse Mass and Rapidity Spectra of Pions and Protons from Au+Au Collisions at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron” (2001).

​Higher twist quanta
In hadronic wave functions --
Summer’s gluinos?
​
Thomas D. Gutierrez
University of California, Davis

​Dissertation Title: “Higher Twist Contributions to Charm and Light Gluino Production” (2000).
Large mass particle fluctuations in hadronic wave functions, such as intrinsic charm quarks in a proton, can fragment into very forward, or leading, particles in the final state of a collision.  This work uses an intrinsic charm model to predict both the distribution of forward moving charm hadrons and exotic R-hadrons (particles containing hypothetical light gluinos) for a variety of initial state particles and energies.

​Electron spin flips
Can polarize nuclei
Just apply voltage!
​
David Dixon
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

​Dissertation Title: “Dots, Diodes and DNP: Electronic and Nuclear Interactions in Two-Dimensional Electron Gases”.
I only covered the “DNP” (dynamic nuclear polarization) section in my haiku.

Defects in crystals,
the atomic scale details,
explain how stuff breaks.
​
Valerie Coffman
Cornell University

​Dissertation Title: Macroscopic Effects of Atomic Scale Defects in Crystals: Grain Boundary Fracture and Brittle-Ductile Transitions

​In ten billion years
Light can pass through many clouds:
Brighter than it looks!
​
Adam Trotter
University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

​Dissertation Title: “The Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglow Modeling Project (AMP): Statistical Methodology and Models of Extragalactic Point Source Extinction and Absorption”

​Continuous waves:
LIGO tests Albert Einstein.
Gravitational.
​
David Chin
University of Michigan

​Dissertation Title: Exploratory Studies in a Search for Continuous-Wave Gravitational
Radiation in Early LIGO Data

​Massive neutrinos,
The Standard Model is wrong,
What gives them their mass?
​
Ganesh
University Of Malaya

​I worked on the problem of neutrinos having mass for my final year project. As it stands, the Standard Model of particle physics does not incorporate massive neutrinos (all neutrinos are considered massless), and I investigated several ways in which the Standard Model can be augmented to include these new neutrinos.

​Cold, thin, plastic film
Reduce thickness by squeezing
Squeeze harder and fail
​
Barry O’Connell
Trinity College, Dublin

​Dissertation Title: Nanomechanical Forming Studies of Thin Polymer Films.
An attempt to understand the behaviour of solid thin films when compressed with very small punches.  The polymer would flow nicely during the embossing leaving imprinted patterns in the film.  It turns out there is a limit to how much material that can be squeezed out from under the punch depending on the size of the punch used.  Pushing really really hard won’t make a difference.

​Binary fluids
Swirling, non linear flows,
Now I play Wall Street.

​Mark Steen
Duke University