Heidelberg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2007.

Extr. de: Diss.--Physique--Aachen--Technischen Hochschule, 2001. / Notes Bibliogr.

Ph. D.--Leiden--Rijksuniversiteit, 1997. / Bibliogr. p. 581-595. Index.

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Hamburg, 1999. / Bibliogr. p. 224-232. Notes bibliogr. Index.

University, Diss., 2002--Heidelberg.

University, Diss., 2001--Bonn.

The phenomenon of friction is on the one hand useful, for example for walking, which would not be so easy without friction, and on the other hand disturbing, for example in wheel bearings, where it slows down desired motion. Therefore, the origin and effect of friction is under intense research. One main point in this work is the analytic investigation of the coupling between friction force and (torsion) friction torque of a sliding and spinning disk. The local friction force at a contact area element was chosen to be an algebraic function of the local relative velocity with an exponent α > 0. It could be shown, that for α < 1 sliding and torsion friction dynamically reduce each other, while for α > 1 they amplify each other. In case of α = 1 sliding and torsion friction are decoupled. With respect to the velocity ratio of sliding and angular velocity, the final motion mode has been investigated, i.e. whether both motions stop together or whether one motion gets dominant. For α < 1 both motions stop together, while for α > 1 it depends on the initial velocity ratio. The mass distribution and contact area radius, which are encoded in the key parameter C of the corresponding differential equation, are the second important influence on the final motion mode. A phase diagram shows for given values C and α the possible final motion modes. The influence of an inhomogenous pressure distribution within the contact area on the coupling was investigated exemplarily for α = 0 with a cylinder as object. In contrast to the disk (homogenous pressure distribution) the cylinder is deflected from its initial sliding direction. In this context the motion of a curling rock on ice is discussed, as it is deflected towards the opposite direction compared to that of the cylinder. Another focal point is the investigation of the role of friction torques (rolling and torsion friction) in the compaction of nano-powders. For this three dimensional contact dynamics simulations with phenomenologically chosen contact laws were performed. With this it could be shown that torsion and rolling friction contribute significantly to the final porosity. Furthermore, these contributions of torsion and rolling friction are independent of each other and can be represented by a sum. In the chapter Conclusions and Outlook a brief introduction on recent research of atomic scale torsion friction is presented.

In this thesis, several stochastic models are investigated, which are subjected to irreversible dynamics. Motivation for the presented work stems, on the one hand, from particular physical systems under consideration, which are modeled by the studied stochastic processes. Besides that, the models discussed in this thesis are, on the other hand, generally interesting from the point of view of statistical physics, since they describe systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Interesting properties to be encountered are, e.g., dynamical scaling behavior or continuous phase transitions. The first issue to be addressed, is the investigation of irreversibly aggregating systems, where the main emphasis is laid on aggregation of monopolarly charged clusters suspended in a fluid. For this purpose, rate equations are analyzed and Brownian dynamics simulations are performed. It is shown that the system crosses over from power-law cluster growth to sub-logarithmic cluster growth. Asymptotically, the cluster size distribution evolves towards a universal scaling form, which implies a 'self-focussing' of the size distribution. Another emphasis of this thesis is the investigation of nonequilibrium critical phenomena, in particular, the study of phase transitions into absorbing states (states that may be reached irreversibly). To this end, the continuous nonequilibrium phase transition of directed percolation, which serves as a paradigm for absorbing-state phase transitions, is analyzed by a novel approach. Despite the lack of a partition function for directed percolation, this novel approach follows the ideas of Yang-Lee theory of equilibrium statistical mechanics, by investigating the complex roots of the survival probability. Stochastic models such as directed percolation mimic spreading processes, e.g., the spreading of an infectious disease. The effect of long-time memory, which is not included in directed percolation and which corresponds to immunization in epidemic spreading, is investigated through an appropriate model. This model includes dynamical percolation (perfect immunization) as a special case, as well as directed percolation (no immunization). The critical behavior of this model is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations, in particular for weak immunization. A further generalization is investigated, which allows spontaneous mutations and different species of spreading agents (pathogens). Restricting the analysis to perfect immunization and two spatial dimensions, it is shown by Monte Carlo simulations, that immunization leads to a crossover from dynamical to directed percolation. Other properties of this model are discussed in detail.

In order to characterize the spin-reorientation transition (SRT), i. e. the change of the easy axis of the magnetization, of ultrathin Ni/Cu(100)- and Fe/Ni/Cu(100)-films the magnetic domain structure was imaged as a function of the Ni and Fe layer thickness, respectively, by using spin-polarized low energy electron microscopy (SPLEEM) during the film growth in ultrahigh vacuum at 300 K. Whereas the size of the domains at the SRT of Ni/Cu(100) is some micrometers, the domain structure of the Fe/Ni-films breaks up into a pattern of 180 nm wide stripe domains. It was shown that the SRT of both Ni/Cu(100) and Fe/Ni/Cu(100) proceeds via a spiral-like rotation of the magnetization within the domains. A discontinuous SRT via coexisting in-plane and out-of-plane magnetized stripe domains is not observed for the film systems.

The realization of integrated-optic broadband wavelength devision multiplexer for separation of 1.31µm and 1.55µm wavelength window is demonstrated based on the well known arrayed waveguide structure. Broadband characteristic with passband greater than 100nm is achieved by using low diffraction order (m = 1, 2). The number of arrayed waveguides is W = 13 and W= 7 respectively. Structure parameters especially those for the star coupler region are derived by use of the transfer-matrix formalism for layered media and the wide-angle finite difference beam propagation method. Prototypes of these structures where realised as doped silica on silicon substrate by using standard plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and reactive ion etching (RIE) techniques. The waveguide structure is based on a 7x7µm waveguide core with refractive index difference Dn = 0.005 with reference to a 20µm buffer and cladding layer. Phosphor and Boron were used as dopands of each silica layer to achieve proper adjustment of phys ical layer properties, i.e. refractive index and transformation temperature. Codopand Boron is used to open a selective thermal postprocessing of deposited layers to overcome inhomogeneous PECVD cladding layer deposition on the RIE structured waveguide