Darbe analizuojami viengyslių varinių ir aliumininių elektros laidų izoliacijos nuėmimo technologiniai režimai, kai šie laidai utilizuojami terminiu būdu patobulinta dviejų besisukančių būgnų mašina. Eksperimentas buvo atliekamas Vilniaus Gedimino technikos universiteto Mašinų ir technologijų laboratorijoje. Šio darbo pagrindinis tikslas – nustatyti optimaliausius elektros laidų izoliacijos sluoksnio nuėmimo, nepažeidžiant laidininko vielos, režimus priklausomai nuo laidų storio dydžio. Bandymo metu gauti rezultatai būtų naudingi smulkioms laidų gamybos, taupant ribuotas žaliavas, atliekų perdirbimo, elektros įrenginių remonto ir gamybos įmonėms efektyviau išnaudoti tokias mašinas. / This work presents results of investigations of technological conditions of removal of plastic insulator from single-core cables, when the cable placed between two rotating rolls and surface of the one roll is heated below the melting temperature of thermoplastic insulator. Experiments were carried out in the Laboratory of machines and technologies of Vilnius Gediminas technical university. The main aim of investigations was to obtain the optimal insulator removal conditions (speed of the roll and temperature of the hot roll) for different core diameter cables. The experimental research results are presented as the optimal peripheral velocity of rolls (or cable speed) required to complete removal of polyvinylchloride insulator from the conductor versus the thickness of copper and aluminum conductor of the single-core cable. The results of investigations can be interesting for small cable manufacturers, waste utilization enterprises and electric equipment repair workshops.

We first study noninteracting electrons moving on corner-sharing tetrahedral lattices, which represent the conduction path of LiAlyTi2−yO4. A uniform box distribution type of disorder for the on-site energies is assumed. Using the Dyson-Mehta Delta-3 statistics as a criterion for localization, we have determined the critical disorder (Wc/t = 14.5 ± 0.25) and the mobility-edge trajectories. Then we study the Anderson-Hubbard model, which includes both interactions and disorder, using a real-space self-consistent Hartree-Fock theory. We provide a partial assessment on how the Hartree-Fock theory approximates the ground states of the Anderson-Hubbard model, using small clusters which can be solved exactly. The Hartree-Fock theory works very well in reproducing the ground-state energies and local charge densities. However, it does not work as well in representing the spin-spin correlations. To find the ground state, one needs to allow maximum degree of freedom in spins. Evidence of screening of disorder by the interactions is provided. We have applied the Hartree-Fock theory to large-scale three-dimensional simple cubic lattices. For a disorder strength of W/t = 6, weak interactions (U/t ≤ 3) enhance the density of states at the Fermi level and the low-frequency conductivity. There are no local magnetic moments, and the AC conductivity is Drude-like. With stronger interactions (U/t ≥ 4), the density of states at the Fermi level and the low-frequency conductivity are both suppressed. These are accompanied by the presence of local magnetic moments, and the conductivity becomes non-Drude-like. A metal-to-insulator transition is likely to take place at a critical Uc/t ≈ 8 – 9. We find that (i) the formation of magnetic moments is essential to the suppression of the density of states at the Fermi level, and therefore essential to the metal-insulator transition; (ii) the form of magnetic moments does not matter; and (iii) these results do not depend on the type of lattice or the type of disorder. / Thesis (Ph.D, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) -- Queen's University, 2009-05-26 02:20:04.652

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The focus of this thesis is on radio frequency magnetron sputtered aluminum oxide thin films developed for use as the gate dielectric for organic thin film transistors. The effect of top metal electrodes on the electrical characteristics of aluminum oxide metal-insulator-metal capacitors has been studied to determine an optimum material combination for minimizing the leakage current, while maximizing the breakdown field. The leakage current and breakdown characteristics were observed to have a strong dependence on the top electrode material. Devices with Al top electrodes exhibited significantly higher breakdown voltages compared to devices with Au, Ni, Cu and Ag electrodes. Introducing an Al diffusion barrier dramatically increased the breakdown field and reduced the leakage current for capacitors with Ag, Au and Cu top electrodes. The electrical characteristics were found to relate well to material properties, of the contacting metals, such as ionization potential and diffusion coefficient.

The focus of this thesis is on radio frequency magnetron sputtered aluminum oxide thin films developed for use as the gate dielectric for organic thin film transistors. The effect of top metal electrodes on the electrical characteristics of aluminum oxide metal-insulator-metal capacitors has been studied to determine an optimum material combination for minimizing the leakage current, while maximizing the breakdown field. The leakage current and breakdown characteristics were observed to have a strong dependence on the top electrode material. Devices with Al top electrodes exhibited significantly higher breakdown voltages compared to devices with Au, Ni, Cu and Ag electrodes. Introducing an Al diffusion barrier dramatically increased the breakdown field and reduced the leakage current for capacitors with Ag, Au and Cu top electrodes. The electrical characteristics were found to relate well to material properties, of the contacting metals, such as ionization potential and diffusion coefficient.

This thesis describes two topological phases of matter, the Weyl semimetal and the line node semimetal, that are related to but distinct from topological insulator phases. These new topological phases are semimetallic, having electronic energy bands that touch at discrete points or along a continuous curve in momentum space. These states are achieved by breaking time-reversal symmetry near a transition between an ordinary insulator and a topological insulator, using a model based on alternating layers of topological and ordinary insulators, which can be tuned close to the transition by choosing the thicknesses of the layers. The semimetallic phases are topologically protected, with corresponding topological surface states, but the protection is due to separation of the band-touching points in momentum space and discrete symmetries, rather than being protected by an energy gap as in topological insulators. The chiral surface states of the Weyl semimetal give it a non-zero Hall conductivity, while the surface states of the line node semimetal have a flat energy dispersion in the region bounded by the line node. Some transport properties are derived, with a particular emphasis on the behaviour of the conductivity as a function of the impurity concentrations and the temperature.

Within condensed matter physics, systems with strong electronic correlations give rise to fascinating phenomena which characteristically require a physical description beyond a one-electron theory, such as high temperature superconductivity, or Mott metal-insulator transitions. In this thesis, a class of strongly correlated electron systems is considered. These systems exhibit fractionally charged excitations with charge +e/2 or -e/2 in two dimensions (2D) and three dimensions (3D), a consequence of both strong correlations and the geometrical frustration of the interactions on the underlying lattices. Such geometrically frustrated systems are typically characterized by a high density of low-lying excitations, leading to various interesting physical effects. This thesis constitutes a study of a model of spinless fermions on the geometrically frustrated kagome lattice. Focus is given in particular to the regime in which nearest-neighbour repulsions V are large in comparison with hopping t between neighbouring sites, the regime in which excitations with fractional charge occur. In the classical limit t = 0, the geometric frustration results in a macroscopically large ground-state degeneracy. This degeneracy is lifted by quantum fluctuations. A low-energy effective Hamiltonian is derived for the spinless fermion model for the case of 1/3 filling in the regime where |t| << V . In this limit, the effective Hamiltonian is given by ring-exchange of order ~ t^3/V^2, lifting the degeneracy. The effective model is shown to be equivalent to a corresponding hard-core bosonic model due to a gauge invariance which removes the fermionic sign problem. The model is furthermore mapped directly to a Quantum Dimer model on the hexagonal lattice. Through the mapping it is determined that the kagome lattice model exhibits plaquette order in the ground state and also that fractional charges within the model are linearly confined. Subsequently a doped version of the effective model is studied, for the case where exactly one spinless fermion is added or subtracted from the system at 1/3 filling. The sign of the newly introduced hopping term is shown to be removable due to a gauge invariance for the case of hole doping. This gauge invariance is a direct result of the bipartite nature of the hole hopping and is confirmed numerically in spectral density calculations. For further understanding of the low-energy physics, a derivation of the model gauge field theory is presented and discussed in relation to the confining quantum electrodynamic in two dimensions. Exact diagonalization calculations illustrate the nature of the fractional charge confinement in terms of the string tension between a bound pair of defects. The calculations employ topological symmetries that exist for the manifold of ground-state configurations. Dynamical calculations of the spectral densities are considered for the full spinless fermion Hamiltonian and compared in the strongly correlated regime with the doped effective Hamiltonian. Calculations for the effective Hamiltonian are then presented for the strongly correlated regime where |t| << V . In the limit g << |t|, the fractional charges are shown to be effectively free in the context of the finite clusters studied. Prominent features of the spectral densities at the Gamma point for the hole and particle contributions are attributed to approximate eigenfunctions of the spinless fermion Hamiltonian in this limit. This is confirmed through an analytical derivation. The case of g ~ t is then considered, as in this case the confinement of the fractional charges is observable in the spectral densities calculated for finite clusters. The bound states for the effectively confined defect pair are qualitatively estimated through the solution of the time-independent Schroedinger equation for a potential which scales linearly with g. The double-peaked feature of spectral density calculations over a range of g values can thus be interpreted as a signature of the confinement of the fractionally charged defect pair. Furthermore, the metal-insulator transition for the effective Hamiltonian is studied for both t > 0 and t < 0. Exact diagonalization calculations are found to be consistent with the predictions of the effective model. Further calculations confirm that the sign of t is rendered inconsequential due to the gauge invariance for g in the regime |t| << V . The charge-order melting metal-insulator transition is studied through density-matrix renormalization group calculations. The opening of the energy gap is found to differ for the two signs of t, reflecting the difference in the band structure at the Fermi level in each case. The qualitative nature of transition in each case is discussed. As a step towards a realization of the model in experiment, density-density correlation functions are introduced and such a calculation is shown for the plaquette phase for the effective model Hamiltonian at 1/3 filling in the absence of defects. Finally, the open problem of statistics of the fractional charges is discussed.

Genomic imprinting is a phenomenon through which a subset of genes are epigenetically marked during gemtogenisis. This mark is maintained in the soma to often manifest parent of origin-specific monoalleleic expresson patterns. Genetics evidence suggests that gene expression patterns in mprinted genes, which are frequently organised in clusters, are regulated by the imprinting control regions (ICR). This thesis is mainly focused on the mechanisms through which the ICRs control the imprinting in the cluster, containing the Kcnq1, Igf2 and H19 genes, located at the distal end of mouse chromosome 7. The H19 ICR, located in the 5' flank of the H19 gene represses paternal H19 and maternal Igf2 expression, respectively, but has no effect on Kcnq1 expression, which is controlled by another ICR located at the intron 10 of the Kcnq1 gene. This thesis demonstrates that the maternal H19 ICR allele contains several DNase I hypersensitive sites, which map to target sites for the chromatin insulator protein CTCF at the linker regions between the positioned nucleosomes. The thesis demonstrates that the H19 ICR acts as a unidirectional insulator and that this property invovles three nucleosome positioning sites facilitating interaction between the H19 ICR and CTCF. The Kcnq1 ICR function is much more complex, since it horbours both lineage-specific silencing functions and a methylation sensitive unidirectional chromatin insulator function. Importantly, the thesis demonstrates that the Kcnq1 ICR spreads DNA methylation into flanking region only when it is itself unmethylated. Both the methylation spreading and silencing functions map to the same regions. In conclusion, the thesis has unraveled and unrivalled complexity of the epigenetic control and function of short strtches of sequences. The epigenetic status of these cis elements conspires to control long-range silencing and insulation. The manner these imprinting control regions can cause havoc in expresson domains in human diseases is hence emerging.

This thesis describes the development and demonstration of a new technique for the fabrication of well-defined quantum dots in a bulk silicon substrate, for potential applications such as quantum computation in coupled quantum dots. Hall characterisation was performed on double-gated mesaMetal-Oxide- Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs) on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate, for the purpose of silicon quantum dots in etched nanowires on SOI. Carrier density and mobility results are presented, demonstrating top- and backgate control over the two inversion layers created at the upper and lower surfaces of the superficial silicon mesa. A new technique is developed enabling effective depletion gating of quantum dots in a bulk silicon substrate. A lower layer of aluminium gates is defined using electron beam lithography; the surface of these gates is oxidised using a plasma oxidation technique; and a further layer of aluminium gates is deposited. The lower gates form tunable tunnel barriers in the narrow inversion layer channel created by the upper MOSFET gate. The two layers of gates are electrically isolated by the localised layer of aluminium oxide. Low-temperature transport spectroscopy has been performed in both the many electron (∼100 electrons) and the few electron (∼10 electrons) regimes.Excited states in the bias spectroscopy provide evidence of quantum confinement. Preliminary temperature and magnetic field dependence data are presented. These results demonstrate that depletion gates are an effective technique for defining quantum dots in silicon. Furthermore, the demonstration of the first silicon radio-frequency single electron transistor is reported. The island is again defined by electrostatically tunable tunnel barriers in a narrow channel field effect transistor. Charge sensitivities of better than 10μe/√Hz are demonstrated at MHz bandwidth. These results establish that silicon may be used to fabricate fast, sensitive electrometers.

In this dissertation, we study properties of quantum interaction phenomena in two-dimensional (2D) and one-dimensional (1D) electronic systems in p-GaAs micro- and nano-scale devices. We present low-temperature magneto-transport data from three forms of low-dimensional systems 1) 2D hole systems: in order to study interaction contributions to the metallic behavior of 2D systems 2) Bilayer hole systems: in order to study the many body, bilayer quantum Hall state at nu = 1 3) 1D hole systems: for the study of the anomalous conductance plateau G = 0.7 ???? 2e2/h The work is divided into five experimental studies aimed at either directly exploring the properties of the above three interaction phenomena or the development of novel device structures that exploit the strong particle-particle interactions found in p-GaAs for the study of many body phenomena. Firstly, we demonstrate a novel semiconductor-insulator-semiconductor field effect transistor (SISFET), designed specifically to induced 2D hole systems at a ????normal???? AlGaAs-on-GaAs heterojunction. The novel SISFETs feature in our studies of the metallic behavior in 2D systems in which we examine temperature corrections to ????xx(T) and ????xy(T) in short- and long-range disorder potentials. Next, we shift focus to bilayer hole systems and the many body quantum Hall states that form a nu = 1 in the presence of strong interlayer interactions. We explore the evolution of this quantum Hall state as the relative densities in the layers is imbalanced while the total density is kept constant. Finally, we demonstrate a novel p-type quantum point contact device that produce the most stable and robust current quantization in a p-type 1D systems to date, allowing us to observed for the first time the 0.7 structure in a p-type device.