Advisor Department Head iii ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Impact of Lifetime Variations and Secondary Barriers on CdTe Solar-cell Performance The thin-film CdTe solar cell (generally n-CdS/p-CdTe) is one of the leading candidates for terrestrial photovoltaic applications due to its low cost and high efficiency. However, compared with single-crystal cells of comparable band gap, there remains a signi...

In the present research, the mixed-mode fracture mechanics analysis in a plate with central hole under tensile loading is considered. It is assumed that a plate containing two symmetrical hole-edge cracks is bonded with two dissimilar planes. The stress intensity factors at the crack tips are calculated. The problem is modeled in Casca software and this model is analyzed with Franc software. Th...

objective(s): throughout evolution, mammalians have increasingly lost their ability to regenerate structures however rabbits are exceptional since they develop a blastema in their ear wound for regeneration purposes. blastema consists of a group of undifferentiated cells capable of dividing and differentiating into the ear tissue. the objective of the present study is to isolate, culture expand...

Roll forming process is used for manufacturing sheet metal parts by successive bending and creating the final shape with gradual deformation. In this article, deformation of a pre-punched sheet due to the roll forming process was studied. Two main defects in the roll forming process are ovality of holes and bow defect. The ovality of the hole is influenced by the process parameters including sh...

The measured values of the matter energy density and the vacuum energy density are obtained using an adiabatic black hole percolating model at the critical point. The percolation of black holes is related with an expanding isotropic universe filled with the most entropic fluid saturating the holographic bound.

We construct a generalized-gradient approximation for the exchange-energy density of finite two-dimensional systems. Guided by nonempirical principles, we include the proper small-gradient limit and the proper tail for the exchange-hole potential. The observed performance is superior to that of the two-dimensional local-density approximation, which underlines the usefulness of the approach in p...

One-dimensional (1D) electron-hole (e-h) systems in a high-density regime is investigated by means of bozonization techniques. It turned out that the systems are insulating even at the high density limit and that the exciton Mott transition (insulator-to-metal transition) never occurs at absolute zero temperature. The insulating ground state exhibits a strong instability towards the crystalliza...