Sharif Digital Repository

Discontinuously reinforced aluminum matrix composites (DRA) are candidates as a substantial class of materials for improved strength, stiffness, and wear resistance. However, the low fracture resistance of DRA's has restricted the widespread use of these materials as structural components. Consequently, intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms have been considered in order to enhance the damage tolerance of composite materials based on microstructural and architectural modification, respectively. The intrinsic toughening technique has shown to elevate fracture resistance to some extent; usually at the expense of reducing several other properties such as strength. The more recent approach to... 

Optical tweezer is a highly focused laser beam that could be used to trap micro and nano particles in three dimensions. It could be used to measure(or apply) piconewton range forces. Most of the optical tweezers experiments have been done in liquid mediums. In last few years, trapping particles which are floating in gas mediums(called aerosols) have been considered extensively. In this thesis, the changes in trap stiffness and conversion factor due to changes in laser power, trapping depth and particle are evaluated. It is shown that changing these three parameters, cause considerable changes in trap stiffnes and conversion factor. Linear behavior of trap stiffness versus laser power,... 

Microfluidics is a field of science that studies micron-scale characteristics of fluids. In this scale fluids show fascinating behavior far beyond our expectation compared to their large-scale counterparts. One of such peculiar behavior is the mixing of two different liquids flowing inside a microchannel. Due to low Reynolds number, the flow inside such a channel would be dominated by laminar behavior. In this regime mixing of the fluids is only mediated by molecular diffusion which is a rather slow process. In the current thesis, we utilized the rotating ability of optical tweezers to construct an active micromixer for Microfluidics. In order to do this we used birefringent microbeads. The... 

Surface tension is the most important interfacial parameter of a liquid. This quantity plays a key role in many processes such as extraction, distillation, absorption and chemical reactions. Various methods are proposed for measuring this quantity among which, the laser based methods are the most accurate ones. Unlike most of the mechanical methods, laser based methods remotely measure the surface tension. The aim of the current thesis is to measure the surface tension using laser beam, more specifically using homodyne detection system. This method implemented in both reflected and transmitted modes. In each of the mentioned methods, first the laser beam was incident to the liquid-air... 

Intensity or phase Modulation of a wavefront is possible by means of optical devices. Placing a grating or lens on the way of a wavefront, will alter the phase or intensity of it and this will make a diffraction pattern. Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) is an optical device which is the most important part of a video projector. One can apply grating, lens and other phases on the wavefront using this device.In this project we used SLM to modify phase of laser beam and then we made many focal points such that they could displace independently. The result of this project can be used in designing and creating a holographic optical tweezers.Moreover, A. Einstein proved that the light could be... 

Viscoelastic properties of biological fluid play an important role on biological organs. As an example we all know that Red blood cells must have high flexibility to pass thorough thin capillary.This high flexibility come partially from cytoplasm and 2 dimensional membrane and partially from polymeric fluid inside the cell(hemoglobin). So, for recognizing mechanical properties of a whole cell we also need to study the same properties just for fluid inside the cell. for this general purpose through this project we are going to measure viscoelastic properties of any polymeric fluid by optical tweezers which has an ability for measuring displacement of micron particle with accuracy of nm. first... 

Optimizing optical tweezers and achieving powerful traps has always been a challenging topic for researchers , since the trap stiffness increases with increasing laser power which may damage specimens , especially biological ones and cells . In this thesis , we introduce a special geometry and structure of particles that , have the possibility to increase the stiffness (strength) of the optical trap and cause the magnetic response of particles at optical frequencies . Special geometries such as a combination of dielectric particles with magnetic nanoparticles that emphasize the role of the laser magnetic field and lead to changes in the electrical and magnetic properties at the laser... 

Optical tweezers consist of a tightly focused laser beam. Particle with refractive index grater than that of the surrounding medium are eligible for optical trapping. This device is used for measuring forces from pico-newton to nano-newton, and displacements from nanometer to micrometer. In biopolymers, for example, it is used for studying the elasticity of DNA molecules, mechanical properties of cell membrane; and also in Microfluidics, it can is used for mixing two liquids flowing in a micro-channel by rotating a trapped particle. In general, physics of optical tweezers (or interaction of the trapped particle with the tightly focused laser beam) is treated in three different regimes:1)... 

Blood is one of the most important fluids in the human body, consisting of three parts: red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. The mechanical properties of red blood cells are important in many diseases. The study of viscosity and other mechanical properties of red blood cells in recent years has attracted the attention of scientists in this field. The mechanical properties of red blood cells are related to the outer membrane and its cytoskeleton, and the study of these components can predict the behavior of red blood cells in diseases. The thyroid gland is located in front of the neck and secretes hormones that control many chemical processes in different parts of the body.... 

Red blood cells are one of the most important parts of blood and their mechanical properties are so important in some diseases. Red blood cell is mostly consisted of membrane, cell skeleton, and cytoplasm which contains hemoglobin proteins. Studying these properties separately not only could give us pieces of information about cell mechanics, but also reveals a way to predict their behavior after illnesses. Optical tweezers as a tool, which can produce and measure Piconewton to Nanonewton forces, has been interesting in red blood cell parts' studying. In this thesis, at first hemoglobin is taken out gradually by using Saponin (which is enable to make some pores in the membrane) and the... 

In this study, Aluminium based nanocomposite with Al3Ti and Al2O3 nanoparticles have been elaborated by mechanical alloying. For this purpose, Al and TiO2 powders have been blended with weight ratios of 10, 20 and 30 percents and were milled using a planetary mill. Morphological variations in different timing periods of mechanical milling process was investigated by Scaning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and The optimal times for alloying were determined for each combination. The pure Aluminium and the powder with 10, 20 and 30%wt reinforcement had coax morphology after respectively for 44, 30, 24 and 14 hours. after studing phase transformations by XRD analysis, the final powders were cold... 

Digital holographic microscope is a microscope based on interferometry, which allows us to simultaneously have the information of the phase in addition to the intensity information. In this research, we intend to measure the thickness of the red blood cell with the help of an interferometer and prepare a three-dimensional microscopic image of the blood cell. After contamination, a laser beam hits an optical beam splitter that can divide the light into two parts with equal intensities. Each of these wave fronts, after hitting the mirror, is directed to another beam splitter to be recombined. . Since the incident lights have traveled different optical paths, they have a phase difference with...