Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Physics / Zenghu Chang / In this research, the carrier-envelope phase (CE phase) evolution of the pulse train from a Kerr-lens mode-locked chirped-mirror dispersion compensated Ti:Sapphire laser oscillator was stabilized. The offset frequency corresponding to the rate of change of the CE phase was obtained by spectrally broadening the oscillator pulses in a photonic crystal fiber and interfering the f and 2f components. An offset frequency linewidth of 100 mHz was obtained and could be locked over several hours. The effect of path length drift in the interferometer used for CE phase stabilization of the laser oscillator was investigated. By stabilizing the path length drift, the interferometer noise was reduced by several orders of magnitude. The CE phase drift through a grating-based chirped-pulse multi-pass amplifier was investigated. Varying the grating separation by 1μm in the stretcher was found to cause a shift of 3.7 +/- 1.2 rad of the CE phase. The CE phase could be stabilized to within 160 mrad rms error by feedback controlling the grating separation. By locking the path length in the f-to-2f interferometer used to stabilize the CE phase of the oscillator pulses, the fast (>3 Hz) CE phase drift of the amplified laser pulses was reduced from 79 to 48 mrad. It was also found that the CE phase could be shifted and set to any value within a 2π range by changing the grating separation. Also, the CE phase could be continuously modulated within a 2π range while maintaining a relative phase error of 171 mrad. The CE phase shift of a grating-based compressor was found to be stabilized to 230 mrad rms. The effect of laser power fluctuation on the CE phase measurement was also investigated. It was found that a 1% fluctuation of the laser energy caused a 160 mrad error in the CE phase measurement. A two-step model is proposed to explain the phase-energy coupling in the CE phase measurement. The model explains the experimentally observed dependence of the group delay between the f and 2f pulses on the laser energy. Few-cycle pulses were CE phase stabilized to 134 mrad rms and were used to perform above-threshold ionization and high harmonic generation.

Thesis (MScEng (Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Regulators and designers of nuclear reactors regard knowledge of the pebble fuel temperature as important, due to the role that it plays in maintaining structural integrity and the production of neutrons. By using special fuel assemblies fitted with measuring equipment it is possible to measure the fuel temperature in stationary fuel reactors. This, however, is not possible in the pebble bed modular reactor due to its dynamic core. Designers of the pebble bed modular reactor have reserved special inspection channel borings inside the center reflector for fuel temperature measurement. By means of optical fibers and interferometry, the temperature can be measured inside such a channel. Currently the only way to control the fuel surface and core temperature is by measuring the gas inlet and outlet temperatures. This thesis attempts to determine the pebble temperature by measuring the temperature in a reflector channel. This is done by constructing an electrically heated pebble bed experimental setup simulating a cutout section of a pebble bed modular reactor core. An additional computational fluid dynamics simulation of the experimental setup was also performed. This thesis also attempts to determine if there is a measureable temperature peak that can indicate where a pebble was in contact with the reflector surface. This could then be used in future studies to determine the pebble fuel velocity as it moves down the reactor core. The computational fluid dynamics results were validated by experimental measurements. In the computational fluid dynamics model and experimental setup, it was found that there was indeed a measureable temperature difference on the temperature gradient along the reflector wall. The heat being conducted away from the pebble through the contact area can explain this. These differences were only observed when the channel was moved closer to the pebbles and it is therefore advised that some redesigning of the channel should be done if the in-core temperature is to be accurately interpreted by the designers at PBMR (Pty) Ltd. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Reguleerders en ontwerpers van kern reaktore beskou die kennis van die korrel brandstof temperatuur as belangrik. Dit is weens die rol wat die brandstof temperatuur speel met die behoud van strukturele integriteit en die produksie van neutrone binne-in die reaktor. Met behulp van spesiale brandstof montasies toegerus met die meetings instrumentasie, is dit moontlik om die brandstof temperatuur in stilstaande brandstof reaktore te meet. Dit is egter nie moontlik in die korrel bed modulêre reaktor nie, as gevolg van sy dinamiese kern. Ontwerpers van die korrel bed modulêre reaktor het spesiale kanale in die binnekant van die middel reflektor vir brandstof temperatuur meeting gereseveer. Deur middel van optiese vesel en interferometrie, kan die temperatuur binne so 'n kanaal gemeet word. Tans is die enigste manier om die brandstof-oppervlak temperatuur te berekern, net moontlik deur gebruik te maak van die gemete gas inlaat-en uitlaat temperature van die reaktor. Hierdie tesis poog om vas te stel of die korrel brandstof temperatuur deur die meet van die oppervlak temperatuur in 'n reflektor-kanaal bepaal kan word. Dit word gedoen deur 'n elektriese verhitte korrel bed eksperimentele opstelling te bou wat 'n gedeelte van 'n korrel bed modulêre reaktor simuleer. 'n Bykomende numeriese simulasie van die eksperimentele opstelling was ook uitgevoer. Hierdie werk het ook probeer om vas te stel of daar 'n meetbare temperatuur piek op die temperatuur profiel aandui kan word waar 'n korrel in kontak is met die reflektor se oppervlak. Dit kan dan in toekomstige studies gebruik word om te bepaal wat die korrel brandstof spoed was soos dit in die reaktor beweeg. Die numerise simulasie uitslae was deur eksperimentele metings bevestig. In die numerise simulasie model en die eksperimentele opstelling, is daar gevind dat daar inderdaad 'n meetbare temperatuur verskil op die temperatuurgradiënt teen die reflektor oppervlak is. Dit kan verduidelik word as gevolg van die hitte wat weg van die korrel gelei word deur middel van die kontak area. Hierdie verskille was slegs waargeneem wanneer die kanaal nader aan die korrels geskuif is en dit word as n aanbeveling aan PBMR (Pty) Ltd gemaak om sommige herontwerpe aan die kanaal te doen indien die in-kerntemperatuur gemeet wil word en akkuraat geinterpreteer wil word.

Coherence scanning interferometry (CSI) is a non-contacting optical technique which is widely used for the measurement of surface topography. CSI combines the lateral resolution of a high power microscope with the axial resolution of an interferometer. As with any other metrology instrument, CSI is calibrated to define measurement uncertainty. The traditional calibration procedure, as recommended by instrument manufacturers, consists of calibration of the axial and lateral scales of the instrument. Although calibration in this way provides uncertainties for the measurement of rectilinear artefacts, it does not give information about tilt-related uncertainty. If an object with varying slope is measured, significant errors are observed as the surface gradient increases. In this thesis a novel approach of calibration and adjustment for CSI using a spherical object is introduced. This new technique is based on three dimensional linear filtering theory. According to linear theory, smooth surface measurement in CSI can be represented as a linear filtering operation, where the filter is characterised either by point spread function (PSF) in space domain or by transfer function (TF) in spatial frequency domain. The derivation of these characteristics usually involves making the Born approximation, which is strictly only applicable for weakly scattering objects. However, for the case of surface scattering and making use of the Kirchhoff approximation, the system can be considered linear if multiple scattering is assumed to be negligible. In this case, the object is replaced by an infinitely thin foil-like object, which follows the surface topography and, therefore, is called the foil model of the surface. For an ideal aberration free instrument, the linear characteristics are determined by the numerical aperture of the objective lens and the bandwidth of the source. However, it is found that the PSF and TF of a commercial instrument can depart significantly from theory and result in a significant measurement error. A new method, based on modified inverse filter to compensate the phase and amplitude-related errors in the system PSF/TF, is demonstrated. Finally, a method based on de-warping to compensate distortion is discussed. The application of the linear theory as well as modified inverse filter is dependent on the assumption of the shift invariance. As distortion introduces a field dependent magnification, the presence of distortion for CSI with relatively large field of view, restricts the applicability of the linear theory. Along with this restriction, distortion also introduces erroneous height measurement for objects with gradients. This new approach, based on de-warping, resolves the problems associated with distortion.

Traditionally, surface topography measurement was in the domain of quality control of engineering parts. With the advancement of manufacturing technology and affordable computational costs, different types of surfaces are produced with varied shapes and surface textures. These pose significant measurement problems, therefore, surface topography research is gaining momentum to achieve a better control of the surface. Coherence scanning interferometry (CSI) is one of the most common techniques used for measurement of surface topography. It is preferred over tactile and other non-contact techniques since it provides fast and accurate measurement with high vertical (~ 1 nm) and lateral (~1 μm) resolutions over larger areas without any damage to the surface. Essentially, CSI is treated as one dimensional (1D) superposition of the light waves from an object and a reference that generates a three dimensional (3D) interferogram. Secondly, despite the advantages, there is no standard configuration of CSI that can provide absolute surface topography measurement of an engineering part with multiple materials. An effective solution to this problem will be particularly useful in the field of semiconductor and bio-related industries where chips and instruments are made of many materials. In this Thesis, first, the CSI technique is analysed in terms of a wider theoretical framework of 3D linear filtering technique which shows the similarities among other seemingly disparate techniques such as confocal and optical coherence tomography. Due consideration to the spectral characteristic of the source and the effect of numerical aperture are given and important parameters such as vertical and lateral resolutions are computed to compare this theory with standard analysis methods. Additionally, it is shown that the 3D fringe pattern can be considered to be a superposition of a reference field and the scattered field from the top foil-like layer on the top the object. The scattered field from this foil object is dependent on the normal Fresnel reflection coefficients. Therefore, it explains the phase offset and the proportional height offset introduced by different materials, especially, metals. In an object, where multiple materials are present, each material introduces different phase to the fringe pattern and therefore, the surface topography of the entire object is altered. To overcome this problem, the optical polarising properties of the material are exploited. A novel configuration of polarisation sensitive CSI is presented where interferograms with orthogonal circular polarisations are recorded and analysed. The configuration, initially, needs to be calibrated with a material and after that at each point on the object, the refractive index and height offset can be calculated. Therefore, it can be dually used to identify unknown materials present on the object and also to compensate for the height offset introduced by each material to produce absolute surface topography of the entire object. The configuration provides good agreement with ellipsometric results for metals. Additionally, it retains the advantages of high vertical and lateral resolution same as other standard coherence scanning interferometers.

In this study, seismic interferometry is used to analyze dynamic processes in the Earth’s shallow subsurface caused by environmental processes and ground shaking. In the first part of the thesis, the feasibility of a passive monitoring with ambient seismic noise at the pilot site for CO2 injection in Ketzin is investigated. Monitoring the expansion of the CO2 plume is essential for the characterization of the reservoir as well as the detection of potential leakage. From June 2008 until August 2013, more than 67000 tons of CO2 were injected into a saline aquifer at a depth of about 650 m. Passive seismic data recorded at a seismic network around the injection site was cross-correlated in a frequency range of 0.5-4.5 Hz over a period of 4 years. The frequency band of 0.5-0.9 Hz, in which surface waves exhibit a high sensitivity at the depth of the reservoir, is not suitable for monitoring purposes as it is only weakly excited. In a frequency range of 1.5-3 Hz, periodic velocity variations with a period of approximately one year are found that cannot be caused by the CO2 injection. The prominent propagation direction of the noise wave field indicates a wind farm as the dominant source providing the temporally stable noise field. This spacial stability excludes variations of the noise source distribution as a spurious cause of velocity variations. Based on an amplitude decrease associated with time windows towards later parts of the coda, the variations must be generated in the shallow subsurface. A comparison to groundwater level data reveals a direct correlation between depth of the groundwater level and the seismic velocity. The influence of ground frost on the seismic velocities is documented by a sharp increase of velocity when the maximum daily temperature stays below 0 C. Although the observed periodic changes and the changes due to ground frost affect only the shallow subsurface, they mask potential signals of material changes from the reservoir depths. To investigate temporal seismic velocity changes due to earthquake-related processes and environmental forcing in northern Chile, 8 years of ambient seismic noise recorded by the Integrated Plate Boundary Observatory Chile (IPOC) are analyzed. By autocorrelating the ambient seismic noise field, approximations of the Green’s functions are retrieved and velocity changes are measured with Coda Wave Interferometry. At station PATCX, seasonal changes of seismic velocity caused by thermal stress as well as transient velocity reductions are observed in the frequency range of 4-6 Hz. Sudden velocity drops occur at times of mostly earthquake-induced ground describing the seismic velocity variations based on continuous observations of the local ground acceleration. The model assumes that not only the shaking of large earthquakes causes velocity drops, but any small vibrations continuously induce minor velocity variations that are immediately compensated by healing in the steady state. The shaking effect is accumulated over time and best described by the integrated envelope of the ground acceleration over one day, which is the temporal resolution of the velocity measurements. In the model, the amplitude of the velocity reduction as well as the recovery time are proportional to the strength of the excitation. The increase of coseismic velocity change and recovery time with increasing excitation is confirmed by laboratory tests with ultrasound. Despite having only two free scaling parameters, the model fits the data of the shaking-induced velocity variation in remarkable detail. Additionally, a linear trend is observed that might be related to a recovery process from one or more earthquakes before the measurement period. A clear relationship between ground shaking and induced velocity reductions is not visible at other stations. The outstanding sensitivity of PATCX to ground shaking and thermal stress can be attributed to the special geological setting of the station, where the subsurface material consists of a relatively loose conglomerate with high pore volume leading to stronger nonlinearity compared to the other IPOC stations. / In dieser Studie werden mit Hilfe von seismischer Interferometrie kleinste dynamische Prozesse in der Erdkruste beobachtet, welche beispielsweise durch umweltbedingte oder anthropogene Einflüsse sowie Bodenerschütterungen hervorgerufen werden können. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit werden Änderungen in der seismischen Geschwindigkeit am Pilotstandort für CO2-Speicherung in Ketzin untersucht. In einer Tiefe von 650m wurden dort zwischen Juni 2008 und August 2013 über 67000 Tonnen CO2 eingelagert. In einem Frequenzbereich vom 0,05-4,5 Hz wurden Kreuzkorrelationen des seismischen Hintergrundrauschens an einem kleinräumigen Netzwerk über einen Zeitraum von 4 Jahren berechnet. Der Frequenzbereich zwischen 0,5 und 0,9 Hz weist eine hohe Sensitivität von Oberflächenwellen in der Tiefe des Reservoirs auf, ist aber nur sehr schwach angeregt und eignet sich deswegen nicht für die Analyse. In einem Frequenzbereich von 1,5-3 Hz zeigen sich periodische Geschwindigkeitsänderungen mit einer Periode von einem Jahr, welche nicht durch die Einlagerung von CO2 erzeugt werden können. Eine Analyse des seismischen Hintergrundrauschens zeigt, dass dieses über den gesamten Zeitraum hinweg hauptsächlich aus der Richtung eines Windparks kommt. Durch die Stabilität des Wellenfeldes können Änderungen in den Quellpositionen, welche sich in scheinbaren Geschwindigkeitsänderungen zeigen können, ausgeschlossen werden. Eine Amplitudenabnahme der Geschwindigkeitsänderungen hin zu späteren Zeitfenstern in der Coda lässt auf oberflächennahe Prozesse als Ursache schließen. Ein Vergleich zwischen den jährlichen Geschwindigkeitsänderungen mit Schwankungen im Grundwasserspiegel zeigt eine direkte Korrelation. Ein sprunghafter Anstieg in der Geschwindigkeit zeigt sich im Winter, wenn die Tageshöchsttemperaturen unter den Gefrierpunkt sinken und der Boden zufriert. Obwohl Bodenfrost und Änderungen im Grundwasserspiegel nur einen sehr oberflächennahen Bereich betreffen, so überdecken sie dennoch mögliche Signale durch die Einlagerung von CO2. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit werden Geschwindigkeitsänderungen in Nordchile untersucht, welche durch erdbebeninduzierte Prozesse und umweltbedingte Einflüsse hervorgerufen werden. Dazu wurden über einen Zeitraum von 8 Jahren Autokorrelationen des seismischen Hintergrundrauschens des IPOC Netzwerkes (Integrated Plate Boundary Observatory Chile) berechnet und mit seismischer Interferometrie ausgewertet. An der Station PATCX können in einem Frequenzbereich von 4-6 Hz periodische Geschwindigkeitsänderungen beobachet werden, welche durch thermisch induzierte Dehnung hervorgerufen werden. Außerdem treten transiente Geschwindigkeitsabnamen nach Bodenerschütterungen auf, welche hauptsächlich von Erdbeben verursacht werden. Die seismische Geschwindigkeit kehrt daraufhin langsam wieder auf ihr vorheriges Niveau zurück. Für die Geschwindigkeitsänderungen wurde ein empirisches Modell entwickelt, welches auf Messungen der lokalen Bodenerschütterung basiert. Dabei wird angenommen, dass nicht nur große erdbebeninduzierte, sondern auch kleinste Bodenerschütterungen einen Abfall der Geschwindigkeit erzeugen, welche wiederum innerhalb kürzester Zeit durch Heilung in den Gleichgewichtszustand zurückkehrt. Dabei summieren sich die Effekte durch die Bodenerschütterungen mit der Zeit auf und werden am besten mit dem Integral der lokalen Bodenbeschleunigung über die Messwerte eines Tages beschrieben. Die Diskretisierung von einem Tag entspricht der zeitlichen Auflösung in der Messung der Geschwindigkeitsänderungen. Sowohl die Amplitude der Geschwindigkeitsabnahme als auch die Zeit bis der Gleichgewichtszustand wieder erreicht ist (Heilungszeit) werden im Modell als proportinal zur Größe der Anregung angenommen. Eine Korrelation der Heilungszeit und der Amplitude der koseismischen Geschwindigkeitsabnahme mit der Größe der Anregung konnte mit Hilfe von Laboruntersuchungen mit Ultraschall bestätigt werden. Mit nur zwei Parametern beschreibt das Modell die transienten Geschwindigkeitsänderungen in bemerkenswerter Genauigkeit. Desweiteren beinhaltet das Modell einen linearen Verlauf in den Geschwindigkeitsänderungen, welcher vermutlich durch einen Heilungsprozess hervorgerufen wird, der auf ein oder mehrere Erdbeben vor dem Messzeitraum folgte. Eine Beziehung zwischen Bodenerschütterung und Geschwindigkeitsänderung ist an anderen Stationen des IPOC Netzwerkes nicht erkennbar. Die herausragende Sensitivität von PATCX im Hinblick auf Bodenerschütterung und thermische Dehnung kann den speziellen geologischen Gegebenheiten an der Station zugeschrieben werden. Bei dem dort vorliegenden Material handelt es sich um ein relativ loses Konglomerat mit großem Porenvolumen, welches ein starkes nichtlineares Verhalten aufweist, was an anderen IPOC Stationen nicht zu erwarten ist.

This thesis describes the analysis of pointed thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect data from observations using the Cosmic Background Imager 2 (CBI2). CBI2 is an upgrade to the original Cosmic Background Imager, with antennas that have twice the effective collecting area, and hence provide greater sensitivity on longer baselines. Observations of the thermal SZ effect constrain the line-of-sight integrated gas pressure within clusters of galaxies and, when combined with X-ray data, provide an excellent tool for deriving the physical properties of these large structures. The CBI2 SZ data combine relatively low-resolution with a large field-of-view, and can therefore be used to constrain the gas properties of medium-redshift clusters out to the virial radius. By jointly fitting a suitable analytical model to SZ data and X-ray surface brightness data, it is possible to obtain constraints on the temperature and total mass of the cluster. For the analysis work presented in this thesis I choose to parametrise the gas based upon the known behaviour of the entropy, and the total mass by the Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW) prescription. This model is tested against Hydrodynamic/N-body simulations and is found to reproduce the radial behaviour of key cluster properties. The CBI2 observations presented in this work focus on the REFLEX-DXL clusters, an X-ray luminous sub-sample of the REFLEX survey at z ~ 0.3, which have previously published X-ray surface brightness data. The Bullet Cluster, a significant merger system, is a member of this sample and is presented here as a case study for use of the entropy-based model. The derived total mass and gas mass fraction of this cluster are found to be consistent with results from previous X-ray observations. The derived properties from the REFLEX-DXL sample are used to construct a preliminary set of SZ scaling relations out to the virial radius, and are found to be consistent with the self-similar model for massive clusters.

Traditional methods of imaging the Earth’s subsurface using seismic waves require an identifiable, impulsive source of seismic energy, for example an earthquake or explosive source. Naturally occurring, ambient seismic waves form an ever-present source of energy that is conventionally regarded as unusable since it is not impulsive. As such it is generally removed from seismic data and subsequent analysis. A new method known as seismic interferometry can be used to extract useful information about the Earth’s subsurface from the ambient noise wavefield. Consequently, seismic interferometry is an important new tool for exploring areas which are otherwise seismically quiet, such as the British Isles in which there are relatively few strong earthquakes. One of the possible applications of seismic interferometry is the ambient noise tomography method (ANT). ANT is a way of using interferometry to image subsurface seismic velocity variations using seismic (surface) waves extracted from the background ambient vibrations of the Earth. To date, ANT has been used to successfully image the Earth’s crust and upper-mantle on regional and continental scales in many locations and has the power to resolve major geological features such as sedimentary basins and igneous and metamorphic cores. In this thesis I provide a review of seismic interferometry and ANT and apply these methods to image the subsurface of north-west Scotland and the British Isles. I show that the seismic interferometry method works well within the British Isles and illustrate the usefulness of the method in seismically quiet areas by presenting the first surface wave group velocity maps of the Scottish Highlands and across the British Isles using only ambient seismic noise. In the Scottish Highlands, these maps show low velocity anomalies in sedimentary basins such as the Moray Firth and high velocity anomalies in igneous and metamorphic centres such as the Lewisian complex. They also suggest that the Moho shallows from south to north across Scotland, which agrees with previous geophysical studies in the region. Rayleigh wave velocity maps from ambient seismic noise across the British Isles for the upper and mid-crust show low velocities in sedimentary basins such as the Midland Valley, the Irish Sea and the Wessex Basin. High velocity anomalies occur predominantly in areas of igneous and metamorphic rock such as the Scottish Highlands, the Southern Uplands, North-West Wales and Cornwall. In the lower crust/upper mantle, the Rayleigh wave maps show higher velocities in the west and lower velocities in the east, suggesting that the Moho shallows generally from east to west across Britain. The extent of the region of higher velocity correlates well with the locations of British earthquakes, agreeing with previous studies that suggest British seismicity might be influenced by a mantle upwelling beneath the west of the British Isles. Until the work described in Chapter 6 of this thesis was undertaken in 2009, seismic interferometry was concerned with cross-correlating recordings at two receivers due to a surrounding boundary of sources, then stacking the cross-correlations to construct the inter-receiver Green’s function. A key element of seismic wave propagation is that of source-receiver reciprocity i.e. the same wavefield will be recorded if its source and receiver locations and component orientations are reversed. By taking the reciprocal of its usual form, in this thesis I show that the impulsive-source form of interferometry can also be used in the opposite sense: to turn any energy source into a virtual sensor. This new method is demonstrated by turning earthquakes in Alaska and south-west USA into virtual seismometers located beneath the Earth’s surface.

The algebra of SU(2) is ubiquitous in physics, applicable both to the atomic spin states and the polarisation states of light. The method developed by Majorana and Schwinger to represent pure, symmetric spin-states of arbitrary value as a product of spin-1/2 states is a powerful tool that allows for a great conceptual and practical simplification. Foremost, it allows the representation of a qudit on the same geometry as a qubit, i.e., the Bloch sphere. An experimental implementation of the Majorana representation in the realm of quantum optics is presented. The technique allows the projection of arbitrary quantum states from a coherent state input. It is also shown that the method can be used to synthesise arbitrary interference patterns with unit visibility, and without resorting to quantum resources. In this context, it is argued that neither the shape nor the visibility of the interference pattern is a good measure of quantumness. It is only the measurement scheme that allows for the perceived quantum behaviour. The Majorana representation also proves useful in delineating uncertainty limits of states with a particular spin value. Issues with traditional uncertainty relations involving the SU(2) operators, such as trivial bounds for certain states and non-invariance, are thereby resolved with the presented pictorial solution. / <p>QC 20170428</p>

The main topic of this thesis is the development of novel diagnostics for the characterisation of infrared femtosecond and extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) attosecond pulses. High-resolution interferometric methods are applied to high harmonic radiation, both to measure the properties of the XUV light and to relate this information to the physics of the fundamental generation process. To do so, a complete high harmonic beamline has been built and optimised to enable the observation of strong signatures of the macroscopic response of the medium. The distinct spatial characteristics of long and short trajectories are studied, as well as the interference between them. An interferometric measurement allows the extraction of the atomic dipole phase, which gives direct access to the sub-cycle electron dynamics. A major focus of this thesis is on the development of a novel method which simultaneously characterises two independent electric fields as a function of any degree of freedom in which it is possible to shear one of the beams. Since each field alternately takes the role of the reference to retrieve the other field, this technique is referred to as mutual interferometric characterisation of electric-fields (MICE). One of the key features of MICE is that no sheared but otherwise identical replica of the test pulse needs to be generated, which is a typical requirement of self-referencing techniques. Furthermore, no a priori information is needed for the reconstruction. The strength and the wide applicability of MICE are demonstrated using two fundamentally different examples. First, the temporal pulse profiles of two infrared femtosecond pulses are simultaneously reconstructed in a single laser shot. In the second demonstration, the MICE approach is used to simultaneously reconstruct the wavefronts of two high harmonic beams. Having this new technique at hand, the phase properties of the different quantum trajectories are compared. All pulse characterisation techniques implicitly assume full coherence of the beam. This, however, is often not the case in practice, in particular when dealing with complex XUV light sources. Here the standard characterisation techniques fail to provide an accurate description of the electric field. Instead, the electric field must be seen as a statistical mixture of different contributions to the overall field. Here an interferometric experiment is first proposed and then performed involving multiple lateral shears to measure the two-point correlation function of high harmonic radiation. This directly provides information about the existence and the magnitude of partial coherence of high harmonics.

In this study the use of two radar interferometry methods, PSInSAR and SBAS, were tested as tools for measuring coastal erosion. If successful it would have allowed for measuring coastal erosion as a function of material lost. The study area used was Ystad municipality, in southern Sweden. Radar data for the study was provided by the ESA, the European space agency, from their ERS-2 and ENVISAT satellites, spanning the period 1998-2005. Unfortunately, even after many different configurations of settings were tested, the results indicated that both methods are very unsuited for use in rural areas such as Ystad, whether for measuring coastal erosion or otherwise. Both methods had severe problems achieving significant coverage after low coherence areas were masked out, and PSInSAR suffered from several anomalies. This is likely due to the highly vegetated nature of the landscape, which results in low coherence through temporal decorrelation. Of the two methods SBAS showed the most promise, but not nearly enough to be considereduseful. It is, based on the scientific literature, possible that simpler interferometry methods might have been more useful. This, and other possible ways to improve the results is something that this study discusses at length.