Related papers: Modular Inflatable Composites for Space Telescopes
The scatter in the apparent magnitude of type Ia supernovae induced by stochastic gravitational lensing is highly dependent on the nonlinear growth of cosmological structure. In this paper, we show that such a dependence can potentially be…
This project is focused on investigating the structural performance of parts and structures produced using the latest additive manufacturing techniques. For additive manufacturing of test coupons, fused deposition modeling of…
The possibility to align and organize faceted particles in the bulk offers intriguing possibilities for the design and discovery of materials and architectures exhibiting novel functional properties. The growth of ice crystals can be used…
Advancements in our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres, from massive gas giants down to rocky worlds, depend on the constructive challenges between observations and models. We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in…
It has been recently demonstrated that integrated optics could enhance accuracy, stability, and ease of use of stellar interferometry techniques. The subject of this thesis is the study of an optical component based on singlemode waveguides…
Strong gravitational lensing of quasars has the potential to unlock the poorly understood physics of these fascinating objects, as well as serve as a probe of the lensing mass distribution and of cosmological parameters. In particular,…
Upcoming high spectral resolution telescopes, particularly Astro-H, are expected to finally deliver firm quantitative constraints on turbulence in the intra-cluster medium (ICM). We develop a new spectral analysis technique which exploits…
Natural materials often feature a combination of soft and stiff phases, arranged to achieve excellent mechanical properties, such as high strength and toughness. Many natural materials have even independently evolved to have similar…
Ferrogels and magnetoelastomers are composite materials obtained by embedding magnetic particles of mesoscopic size in a crosslinked polymeric matrix. They combine the reversible elastic deformability of polymeric materials with the high…
Self-assembled monolayers of microparticles encoding Archimedean and non-regular tessellations promise unprecedented structure-property relationships for a wide spectrum of applications in fields ranging from optoelectronics to surface…
Glasses have numerous applications due to their exceptional transparency, however, poor fracture and impact resistance limit their applications as an engineering material. One relatively recent approach to improve the mechanical properties…
Galactic dynamo models have generally relied on input parameters that are very challenging to constrain. We address this problem by developing a model that uses observable quantities as input: the galaxy rotation curve, the surface…
New ground-based telescopes and instruments, the return of the NICMOS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and the recent launch of the Spitzer Space Telescope have provided new tools that are being utilized in the study of…
Stellarators confine fusion plasmas using three-dimensional magnetic fields composed of nested toroidal magnetic surfaces. In generic stellarators, trapped particles can drift across these surfaces and degrade plasma confinement. Certain…
The composite optical beams being a result of superposition, are a promising way to study the orbital angular momentum and its effects. Their wide range of applications makes them attractive and easily available due to the growing interest…
Lack of stiffness often limits thin shape-shifting structures to small scales. The large in-plane transformations required to distort the metrics are indeed commonly achieved by using soft hydrogels or elastomers. We introduce here a…
We propose a new instrumental concept for long-baseline optical single-mode interferometry using integrated optics which were developed for telecommunication. Visible and infrared multi-aperture interferometry requires many optical…
Stellarator magnetic configurations need to be optimized in order to meet all the required properties of a fusion reactor. In this work, it is shown that a flat-mirror quasi-isodynamic configuration (i.e. a quasi-isodynamic configuration…
The advent of space-based photometry missions in the early 21st century enabled the application to asteroseismic data of advanced inference techniques until then restricted to the field of helioseismology. The high quality of the…
Mechanical metamaterials with complex microstructures have superior physical properties such as graded stiffness, negative Poisson's ratio, and advantage in energy absorption. In recent years, origami provide many inspirations in the…