Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Physics and Mathematical Physics, 1998. / Copies of author's previously published articles inserted. Bibliography: p. 119-129.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006. / Title from Web page (viewed on Jan. 5, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-174).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Adibi, Ali; Committee Member: Altunbasak, Yucel; Committee Member: Callen Jr, William R; Committee Member: Gaylord, Thomas K; Committee Member: McLaughlin, Steven W; Committee Member: Trebino, Rick.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northeastern University, 2008. / Title from title page (viewed May 26, 2009). Graduate School of Engineering, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-155).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1995. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-56).

Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-104).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-114).

When a particle is illuminated by a beam of light it will scatter and redistribute the light in all directions. How it scatters depends on the size, shape and refractive index of the particle. Additionally, it depends on the wavelength and polarization of the illuminating beam. The direction and distance to the observer relative the particle also needs to be considered.  A digital holographic imaging system is used to collect parts of the scattered light from micrometer-sized particles. By utilizing digital holography a three-dimensional reconstruction of the imaged scene is possible. Traditionally, particles are localized based on the intensity in the holographic reconstructions. In this licentiate thesis, the phase response of the scattered light is investigated and utilized. An alternative method for locating spherical particles is presented. The method locate particles based on a simple feature of a propagating wave, namely the fact that the wavefront curvature changes from converging to diverging at the axial location of the particle. The wavefront curvature is estimated using two different methods. The first method estimates the lateral phase-gradients using a finite-difference method. The second method uses a three-dimensional parametric model based on a Chebyshev polynomial expansion. The methods are demonstrated using both simulations and experimental measurements. The simulations are based on the Lorenz-Mie scattering theory for spherical particles and are combined with an imaging system model. Experiments are performed using an off-axis polarization sensitive digital holographic system with a coherent Nd:YAG laser. Measurements of stationary particles are made to validate and evaluate the proposed method. It is found that these methods estimate the true axial position and does not have the offset that is associated with intensity-based methods. Additionally, it is possible to exclude noise that shows up as false particles since noise does not have the same phase response as a real particle. The second method, that uses a parametric model, also improves the standard deviation in the positioning.

In this thesis we consider various applications the gauge/gravity duality to study transport in strongly coupled systems. The main content is organized in three parts. In the first part we investigate the interrelation between dimensionality and strength of interactions. It is known that the dynamics of systems in Condensed Matter and General Relativity simplify for high dimensionality. Therefore, in this limit of large dimensionality, analytic results are usually possible. We study the dependence of the conductivity and the entanglement entropy on the space-time dimensionality in two different models of holographic superconductors: one dual to a quantum critical point with spontaneous symmetry breaking, and the other modelled by a charged scalar that condenses at a sufficiently low temperature in the presence of a Maxwell field. In the large dimensionality limit we obtain explicit analytical results for the conductivity at zero temperature and the entanglement entropy. Our results suggest that, as dimensionality increases, the condensate interactions become weaker. In the second part we first investigate the Drude weight and the related Mazur-Suzuki (MS) bound in a broad variety of strongly coupled field theories with a gravity dual at nonzero temperature and chemical potential. We show that the MS bound, which in the context of Condensed Matter provides information on the integrability of the theory, is saturated in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton (EMd) and R-charged backgrounds. We then explore EMd theories with U(1) spontaneous symmetry breaking, and gravity duals of non-relativistic field theories, in which the MS bound is not saturated. Finally, we study the effect of a weak breaking of translational symmetry and we show that the MS bound sets a lower bound on the DC conductivity for a given scattering time. In the last part, we study asymptotically anti de Sitter Brans-Dicke (BD) backgrounds as effective models of metals with a varying coupling constant. We show that, for translational invariant backgrounds, the zero-frequency conductivity (dc conductivity) deviates from the universal result of EMd models. Once translational symmetry is broken, the shear viscosity to entropy ratio is always lower than the Kovtun-Son-Starinets bound, in line with other gravity backgrounds with momentum relaxation. In the BD models studied, we observed insulating like features in the dc conductivity. However, the module and argument of the optical conductivity at intermediate frequencies are not consistent with cuprates experimental results, even assuming several channel of momentum relaxation. We have also included the research carried out in the first year of the PhD as appendices. The topics studied in these appendices lie outside the main framework of this thesis.

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