Acknowledgements

During this work, I received cooperation, guidance and inspiration from many individuals from CEERI, Pilani as well as from Kurukshetra University. I wish to express my sincere appreciation and gratefulness to my Ph.D. supervisors, Dr. K. J. Rangra and Prof. Dinesh Kumar for the knowledge, insight, valuable guidance, continuous encouragement and faith in my work and abilities throughout this research. Especially, I would like to thanks Dr. Rangra for teaching me how to be patient during the research. He is always there when I need help. Indeed my gratitude to him cannot be expressed in a few words and it is my honor to be his student. I also thanks to Prof. Anil Vohra, Chairman, Department of Electronic Science, Dr. B. Prasad and Dr. Anurekha Sharma for their endless support and encouragement. I am grateful to Dr. Chandra Shekhar, Director, CEERI, Pilani for providing me an opportunity to carry out the maximum work reported in this thesis in CEERI, Pilani. At times, he had advised invaluable suggestions for the research problems. Also, I am thankful to him for his endless support throughout the thesis work. I would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Space Application Centre (SAC, ISRO), Ahmedabad and CSIR. I am grateful to Mr. Surinder Singh and Ms. Shilpi Soni for their continuous support during device measurements at SAC, Ahmedabad. I take this opportunity to thank all Scientific/Technical staff of Semiconductor Device Area, CEERI, Pilani. My sincere thanks to Dr. Jamil Akhtar, Group Leader, SNTG, SDA for providing facilities during the fabrication work. I would also like to thanks Dr. G. Eranna for his invaluable suggestions during the processing. My sincere thanks to Mr. B. C. Joshi, without whom this work cannot be completed. His support is highly acknowledged for this work. I would also like to thanks Mr. Anil Kumar, Mr. Pankaj B Aggarwal, Mr. Ashok Gupta, Mr. B.C. Pathak, Mr. Arvind Kumar Singh, Mr. Pratik Kothari, Mr. Negi & Mr. Banwari Lal for providing me help in different fabrication facilities. I would also like to thanks Dr. C. Dhanavantri for allowing us to complete one complete run in optoelectronics devices group. I also acknowledge Dr. Suchandan Pal, Mr.

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Ashok Chauhan, Mr. Kuldeep & Mr. Mahender Soni for their help during the work. Also, I thanks Dr. V. K. Khanna, Group leader, MEMS facilities for allowing us to use MEMS facilities during fabrication process. I would also like to thank my other team members, Mr. Akshdeep Sharma, Mr. Deepak Bansal & Mr. Prem Kumar for their suggestions & continuous support. I wish to express my special thanks and appreciation to my friends: Ms. Subha Laxmi, Ms. Shalini kothari, Ms. Kalpana Pandey, Ms. Hasina Khatun, Ms. Pooja Sharma, Ms. Aparna, & Ms. Chandni Anand for their love, help and support. Especially Ms. Subha Laxmi always encouraged me for the work, discussed process problems and gave me priceless suggestions related to lithography and fabrication. I will never forget the moments I have spend with all my friends in CP eating ice-cream with gulab-jamun in winters and idally-sambhar in SAC. Also, I cannot forget to acknowledge my best friend Ms. Harjeet Kaur for always calling me and encouraging me. I must also thanks my parents Ms. Paramjeet Kaur and Mr. Kulwant Singh, my younger brother Harry and my elder sister Ms. Vinny and her husband Mr. Gobind Singh for their love, affection and continuous support during this work. Special thanks to my sister Vinny, who had always waited for my thesis completion, so that I can attend family gatherings and functions with her. I must express my deepest appreciation to my husband Mr. Vipul Kumar and in-laws; Ms. Kusum and Mr. Devendera Singh who always support me for continuing studies after marriage. I gratefully acknowledge all my special friends and all other persons whose names do not appear here but whose love, cooperation and participation in various forms have motivated me and helped me to complete this work. I am thankful to all from the bottom of my heart.

Maninder Kaur