Skip to content
University of Maryland LibrariesDigital Repository at the University of Maryland
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   DRUM
    • Theses and Dissertations from UMD
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Metal hydrides as a platform for reconfigurable photonic and plasmonic elements

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Palm_umd_0117E_21822.pdf (79.44Mb)
    No. of downloads: 11

    Date
    2021
    Author
    Palm, Kevin James
    Advisor
    Munday, Jeremy N
    DRUM DOI
    https://doi.org/10.13016/cqkc-txf3
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Metal hydrides often display dramatic changes in optical properties upon hydrogenation. These shifts make them prime candidates for many tunable optical devices from optical hydrogen sensors and switchable mirrors to physical encryption schemes. In order to design and fabricate optimized devices for any of these applications, we need to determine the optical and structural properties of these materials. In this dissertation, we design and implement an apparatus that dynamically measures the gravimetric, stress, calorimetric, and optical properties of metal hydrides as they are exposed to H2. We use this apparatus to measure the properties of 5 different pure metal hydrides (Pd, Mg, Ti, V, and Zr) and then use these properties to design tunable color filters and switchable perfect absorbers, among other devices. To widen our parameter space and to combine desirable characteristics of different metal systems, we use the same apparatus to investigate the properties of different metal alloy hydride systems including Pd-Au, Mg-Ni, Mg-Ti, and Mg-Al. We demonstrate many improved nanophotonic designs with these materials, including a thin-film physical encryption scheme with Pd-Au and a switchable solar absorber with Mg-Ti. Many of these photonic devices can be further enhanced by tailoring the substrate of the device along with the metal hydride. In this dissertation, we also investigate combining the switchable optical properties of metal hydrides with near-zero-index substrates to further enhance the optical device changes. Near-zero-index materials are ones where the refractive index is below 1 and can lead to a variety of interesting optical effects, including high absorption in surrounding materials and enhanced non-linear effects. By combining an ITO substrate with a near-zero-index resonance at ~1250 nm with a thin Pd capped Mg film, we demonstrate a switchable absorption device with >76% absorption change at 1335 nm illumination. To further explore the possibility of large-scale fabrication of these devices, we survey the properties of commercially available near-zero-index materials and report the range of attainable optical properties, showing its feasibility.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1903/27805
    Collections
    • Physics Theses and Dissertations
    • UMD Theses and Dissertations

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility
     

     

    Browse

    All of DRUMCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

    My Account

    LoginRegister
    Pages
    About DRUMAbout Download Statistics

    DRUM is brought to you by the University of Maryland Libraries
    University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-7011 (301)314-1328.
    Please send us your comments.
    Web Accessibility