Jonah Shaw’s Comps Presentation
Wednesday, January 31st
3:10 pm in Olin 141
Radiative Transfer in the Earth-Atmosphere-Space System
Global climate change stands as one of the most pressing problems of the 21st century. Temperatures are predicted to increase by as much as 5C by 2100 while sea levels could rise by 8 feet in the same time. The atmosphere mediates the exchange of energy between the earth and space, playing an important role in determining surface temperatures on the earth. Its composition and structure, as well as the processes of absorption, emission, and scattering that occur within it combine to describe the transfer of radiation into and out of the earth-atmosphere-space system. This talk will discuss the atmospheric greenhouse effect and the physics of human caused climate changes before looking ahead to geoengineering strategies to mitigate and even reverse the effects of climate change.
David Higgs’s Comps Presentation
Friday, February 2nd
3:30 pm in Olin 141
Plasmonics: From Stained Glass to Solar Cells
The field of plasmonics has a large variety of applications that range from developing tagless biosensors to explaining the color of stained glass. For this reason, plasmonics has attracted the attention of the physics research community in the last two decades. Plasmonics can be generally defined as the study of collective electron oscillation. However, this talk will mainly focus on these electron oscillations that occur at a metal-dielectric interfaces. The aim of this talk is to give insight into the study of plasmonics by first examining how metals respond to incident light and the associated electric field. Then we will focus on different designs of metal-dielectric interfaces that allow collective electron oscillations to occur in order to understand their behavior and performance. Finally, we will look at different technology that uses plasmonics techniques with Surface Plasmon Resonance Imaging and plasmonic solar cells being of particular interest.
No Comps Presentation
Monday, February 5th
8:30 am in Olin 141
Mid-Term Break