<p>This thesis is based upon synthesis and structure determination of new transition metal oxo-halide compounds, which includes p-element cations that have a stereochemically active lone pair. A synthesis concept has been developed, which uses several different structural features to increase the possibility to yield a low-dimensional arrangement of transition metal cations. A total of 17 new compounds has been synthesised and their structures have been determined <i>via</i> single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The halides and the stereochemically active lone-pairs will typically act as terminating species segregating into regions of non-bonding volumes, which may take the form of 2D layers, 1D channels or Euclidean spheres. The transition metals that have been used for this work are copper, cobalt and iron. The Hard-Soft-Acid-Base principle has been utilized to match strong Lewis acids to strong Lewis bases and weak acids to weak bases. All compounds show tendencies towards low-dimensionality; they all have sheets of transition metal cations arranged into layers, where the layers most often are connected via weak dispersion forces.</p>

Cette thèse aborde deux problèmes ayant trait à la physique des gaz quantiques de basse dimensionnalité. Le premier système étudié est un mélange unidimensionnel de bosons et de fermions sans spin soumis à un potentiel aléatoire. Nous commençons par écrire un Hamiltonien de basse énergie et abordons la question de la localisation du point de vue de l'accrochage des ondes de densité par un désordre faible. En utilisant le Groupe de Renormalisation et une méthode variationnelle dans l'espace des répliques, le diagramme de phase peut être tracé en fonctions de deux paramètres : la force des interactions Bose-Bose et Bose-Fermi. La position et les propriétés des phases dépendent d'un paramètre additionnel, le rapport des vitesses du son de chaque composante du gaz. Quelque soit la valeur de ce rapport nous trouvons trois phases, (i) une phase totalement délocalisée, le liquide de Luttinger à deux composantes, (ii) une phase totalement localisée où les deux composantes sont accrochées par le désordre et (iii) une phase intermédiaire où seuls les fermions sont localisés. Le deuxième système est un gaz de bosons de cœur dur sur un réseau en échelle. Trois paramètres en contrôlent la physique : les amplitudes de saut transverse et longitudinale, et le remplissage. En utilisant plusieurs méthodes analytiques (théorie des perturbations, bosonisation et RG) nous proposons une interprétation de résultats numériques nouveaux obtenus par nos collaborateurs, notamment sur le paramètre de Luttinger du mode symétrique. Nous en déduisons un diagramme de phase en présence de désordre faible. / In this thesis we study two distinct problems related to the physics of quantum gases in one dimension. After writing a low-energy Hamiltonian, we address the question of localization by considering the pinning of density waves by weak disorder. Using the Renormalization Group and a variationnal method in replica space, we find that the phase diagram is adequately plotted as a function of two parameters: the strength of Bose-Bose and Bose-Fermi interactions. The position and properties of the various phases depend on an additional third parameter, the ratio of the phonon velocities of each component of the gas. Whatever the value of this ratio, we identify -- using the Renormalization Group and a variational calculation -- three types of phases, (i) a fully delocalized phase, that is a two-component Luttinger, (ii) a fully localized phase where both components are pinned by disorder and (iii) an intermediate phase where fermions are localized and bosons are superfluid. The second system is a two-leg ladder lattice of hardcore bosons. Three parameters control the physics: transverse and longitudinal tunneling and the filling. Using several analytical methods (perturbation theory, bosonization, RG) we give an interpretation of new numerical results obtained by our collaborators, namely on the Luttinger parameter of the symmetric mode. We deduce a phase diagram for weak disorder.

This thesis is based upon synthesis and structure determination of new transition metal oxo-halide compounds, which includes p-element cations that have a stereochemically active lone pair. A synthesis concept has been developed, which uses several different structural features to increase the possibility to yield a low-dimensional arrangement of transition metal cations. A total of 17 new compounds has been synthesised and their structures have been determined via single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The halides and the stereochemically active lone-pairs will typically act as terminating species segregating into regions of non-bonding volumes, which may take the form of 2D layers, 1D channels or Euclidean spheres. The transition metals that have been used for this work are copper, cobalt and iron. The Hard-Soft-Acid-Base principle has been utilized to match strong Lewis acids to strong Lewis bases and weak acids to weak bases. All compounds show tendencies towards low-dimensionality; they all have sheets of transition metal cations arranged into layers, where the layers most often are connected via weak dispersion forces.

La durée de vie des porteurs minoritaires est l'un des principaux paramètres mesurés dans les semi-conducteurs et la décroissance de photoconductivité (PCD) l'une des méthodes les plus largement utilisées pour ce type de mesure. Aujourd'hui, grâce aux divers équipements automatisés, la mesure de durée de vie est devenue une caractérisation de routine qui permet de juger de la qualité d'un matériau dans tous les secteurs utilisant les semi-conducteurs. Cependant, l'utilisation de micro- et nano-matériaux dans l'industrie du photovoltaïque et de la microélectronique requière l'adaptation des techniques existantes (PCD, photoluminescence etc.). En effet, avec la réduction des dimensions (couches ultraminces telles que les couches épitaxiées, couches SOI « silicon on insulator », et nanostructures), l'influence de la surface (états d'interfaces, pièges, etc.) devient prépondérante. La présence des substrats utilisés pour les croissances ou report de couche de ces différentes structures perturbe également les mesures. Ceci rend difficile l'adaptation des méthodes de mesure de durée de vie classiques comme, par exemple, le déclin de photoconductivité. Au cours de cette thèse nous nous sommes attachés à adapter des techniques de caractérisation de durée de vie à des matériaux de faibles dimensions. Nous avons tout d'abord caractérisé des échantillons massifs et des couches épitaxiées d'une épaisseur de l'ordre de la dizaine de micromètres. Nous avons proposé une technique qui consiste à déterminer simultanément la durée de vie en volume et la vitesse de recombinaison en surface des porteurs minoritaires dans d'une couche épitaxiée, à partir de la mesure de l'intensité de photoluminescence. La méthode développée consiste à calculer le rapport de l'intensité de photoluminescence (RPL) mesurée à différentes longueurs d'onde et pour différentes puissances d'excitation. Ces rapports RPL expérimentaux sont ensuite comparés aux rapports RPL simulés, ce qui permet d'évaluer la vitesse de recombinaison en surface et le temps de vie en volume. Nous avons ensuite étudié des couches semi-conductrices ultraminces de l'ordre de la centaine de nanomètres dans des structures de type SOI (silicon on insulator). Après un rappel des méthodes de fabrication et de quelques-unes des utilisations, nous avons analysé les méthodes électriques existantes permettant de déterminer la qualité des substrats SOI. Cela nous a amené à proposer une nouvelle méthode de caractérisation apportant des solutions aux limitations de ces techniques. Cette méthode se base sur une mesure courant-tension sous obscurité et sous éclairement en configuration PSEUDO-MOSFET où le substrat de la structure SOI sert de grille du transistor et deux pointes déposées sur le film de silicium servent de source et drain. Nous avons appliqué cette nouvelle méthode de caractérisation de la durée de vie des porteurs de charge à un substrat SOI et avec l'aide de la simulation numérique, nous avons pu expliquer les phénomènes de recombinaison aux interfaces et extraire les paramètres associés. Enfin, la dernière partie de ce travail de thèse concerne l'étude des nanofils pour des applications photovoltaïques. Dans les nanofils, le rapport surface sur volume augmente considérablement ce qui entraîne une diminution de la durée de vie effective due à l'augmentation de l'influence des surfaces. Le fonctionnement des cellules solaires à base de nanofils que nous avons étudiées est très dépendant de la qualité des interfaces. Nous avons analysé ces cellules grâce à la méthode RRT (« Reverse Recovery Transient ») basée sur la proportionnalité qui existe entre la quantité de charges stockées dans les régions neutres des jonctions pn polarisées et la durée de vie des porteurs minoritaires. Ce type de structure étant assez complexe, nous avons utilisé des simulations numériques pour analyser les phénomènes de recombinaison au sein de la cellule solaire et extraire les densités de défauts aux interfaces. / The minority carrier lifetime is one of the main parameters used to analyse the semiconductors quality and photoconductivity decay (PCD) is one of the most widely used lifetime characterization method. Thanks to the variety of automated equipment that has developed, lifetime measurement has become a routine technique to assess the quality of semiconductors. However, the micro and nano materials used in the photovoltaic and microelectronics industry require an adaptation of the existing methods (PCD, photoluminescence etc.). Indeed, with reduced dimensions (epitaxial layers, SOI “Silicon on Insulator”, nanostructures and nanowires), the influence of the surface (interface states density, traps, etc.) becomes predominant. The presence of the substrates used for the material growth or for the layer transfer can also influence the measures. Consequently traditional methods of lifetime measurement are difficult to apply to low dimensional materials. This thesis is focused on the measurement of minority carrier lifetime in micro and nano materials (bulk, epitaxial layer, silicon on insulator and nanowires) with a special emphasis on the adaptation of the characterization tools to the material thickness. We have studied first bulk samples and epitaxial layers (with thicknesses around 50µm) by photoluminescence. We have developed a method to determine simultaneously the bulk lifetime and the surface recombination velocity using room temperature photoluminescence measurement. The procedure consists in measuring the photoluminescence intensity ratio at different incident laser wavelengths and power. These photoluminescence ratios are then compared with analytical simulations, which allow us to evaluate the surface recombination velocity and the bulk lifetime. We have then investigated SOI (Silicon on insulator) structures with ultrathin semiconductor layers of the order of 100 nanometers. After a brief description of the manufacturing methods and of some of their uses, we have analyzed the existing electrical methods used to evaluate the quality of SOI substrates. This led us to propose a new characterization method to overcome the limitations of these techniques. This method is based on a current-voltage measurement in the dark and under illumination called PSEUDO-MOSFET (the substrate of the SOI structure serves as the transistor gate and the two contact points deposited on the silicon film are used as the source and drain). We applied this new method to characterize the lifetime of a SOI substrate and with the help of numerical simulation, we were able to explain the recombination mechanism associated with interfaces and extract the parameters. Finally, the last chapter concerns the study of nanowires for photovoltaic applications. In the nanowires, the surface to volume ratio greatly increases leading to a decrease of the effective lifetime due to the increased influence of the surfaces. In this chapter, we have studied the minority carrier lifetime in core-shell nanowire-based solar cells under dark conditions with a purely electrical approach called reverse recovery transient (RRT). This method is based on storage time measurement which depends essentially on the amount of stored charges in the biased junction and can be used to calculate the minority carrier lifetime. Numerical simulations have also been done to explain the measurements and to validate the theory and the hypotheses used for parameter extraction.

Les atomes ultrafroids constituent depuis une vingtaine d’années un domaine fructueux pour l’étude de la physique à N corps. Cependant l’inhomogénéité des nuages atomiques, induite par les méthodes de piégeage utilisées habituellement, constitue une limite pour les études portant sur de grandes échelles de longueur. Nous reportons ici la mise en place d’un nouveau dispositif expérimental, combinant un potentiel modulable à bords raides et fond plat dans le plan atomique, avec un confinement versatile dans la troisième direction. Nous nous intéressons à différentes excitations du système, premièrement des degrés de liberté internes des atomes via leur interaction avec la lumière, puis deuxièmement de leur mouvement collectif avec la propagation de phonons. La répartition des atomes dans un plan est particulièrement adaptée aux études de diffusion de la lumière. Elle permet en effet de sonder de fortes densités atomiques, entraînant de fortes interactions dipôle-dipôle induites, tout en gardant un signal transmis suffisant pour effectuer des mesures. Nous avons mesuré la déviation au comportement d’un atome isolé pour de la lumière proche de résonance lorsque la densité atomique est modifiée. Nous avons également étudié la diffusion de photons dans un disque d’atomes en injectant de la lumière seulement au centre du disque. Nous nous sommes ensuite intéressés aux excitations collectives du gaz. Nous avons mesuré la vitesse du son dans le milieu, qui est liée à la fraction superfluide du système, et comparé nos résultats aux prédictions d’un modèle hydrodynamique à deux fluides. En utilisant une géométrie adaptée, nous avons en outre étudié la dynamique de retour à l’équilibre d’un système isolé, en imageant la phase du condensat de Bose-Einstein résultant de la fusion de jusqu’à douze condensats. / Ultracold atoms have proven to be a powerful platform for studying many-body physics. However the inhomegeneity of atomic clouds induced by potentials commonly used to trap the atoms constitutes a limitation for studies probing large length scales. Here we present the implementation of a new versatile setup to study two-dimensional Bose gases, combining a tunable in-plane box potential with a strong and efficient confinement along the third direction. We study different excitations of the system, either of internal degrees of freedom of the atoms with light scattering, or of their collective motion with phonon propagation. The slab geometry is particularly well suited for light scattering studies. It allows one to probe high atomic densities, leading to strong induced dipole-dipole interactions, while keeping a good enough light transmission for measurements. We monitor the deviation from the single atom behavior for near resonant light by varying the atomic density. We additionally monitor the spreading of photons inside the slab by injecting light only at the center of a disk of atoms. We also investigate collective excitations of the atomic gas. We measure the speed of sound which is linked to the superfluid density of the cloud and compare our results to a two-fluid hydrodynamic model predictions. Using a relevant geometry, we additionally study how an isolated system goes back to equilibrium. This is done by imaging the phase of the resulting Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) after merging up to twelve BECs.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientÃfico e TecnolÃgico / A possibilidade de se obter sistemas bidimensionais a partir de materiais com estrutura cristalina lamelar tem atraÃdo muitas pesquisas nesses materiais, pois as propriedades de poucas camadas diferem bastante dos seus respectivos bulks, o que abre uma gama de possibilidades em aplicaÃÃes tecnolÃgicas. O fÃsforo negro apresenta muitas propriedades interessantes, dentre elas, um gap de energia, que garante a construÃÃo de dispositivos eletrÃnicos (bem diferente do grafeno que à um semi metal sem gap). Esse gap pode ser ajustado aumentando o nÃmero de camadas, variando de 0.3 eV para uma monocamada atà cerca de 2.0 eV para o bulk, cobrindo um espectro de energia de gap relativamente grande de dispositivos Ãpticos. AlÃm disso, esse material à altamente anisotrÃpico em sua estrutura de bandas. Neste trabalho, derivamos a aproximaÃÃo da massa efetiva a partir do modelo tight-binding e usamos o Hamiltoniano aproximado para estudar nanoestruturas de fÃsforo negro. Nesse modelo, o carÃter anisotrÃpico do fÃsforo negro à refletido na diferenÃa entre as massas efetivas quando se toma diferentes direÃÃes. Primeiramente, comparamos os resultados numÃrico obtido atravÃs da tÃcnica de diferenÃas finitas com o modelo analÃtico para um ponto quÃntico circular, que devido à estrutura de bandas ter um contorno elÃptico, à descrito pelas equaÃÃes de Mathieu quando se resolve a equaÃÃo de SchrÃdinger. Os resultados analÃtico e numÃrico mostram boa concordÃncia. Ainda na aproximaÃÃo da massa efetiva, estudamos o efeito de campos externos sobre um anel quÃntico de fÃsforo negro e analisamos o efeito da interaÃÃo entre esses campos e a anisotropia de massa do sistema sobre seus estados eletrÃnicos. Devido à anisotropia de massa, esse sistema quando sujeito a um campo magnÃtico, nÃo apresenta oscilaÃÃes Aharonov-Bohm, que podem ser recuperadas aplicando-se um potencial de confinamento elÃptico. Estudamos tambÃm o efeito de um campo elÃtrico nas direÃÃes x e y em um anel quÃntico, e verificamos como a energia à alterada pelo campo. Nossos resultados mostram que, como consequÃncia de uma localizaÃÃo da funÃÃo de onda causada pela anisotropia de massa, os nÃveis de energia decrescem quadraticamente (efeito Stark) com o campo aplicado apontando para a direÃÃo armchair, enquanto um decrÃscimo quase linear (efeito Stark linear) aparece para um campo aplicado na direÃÃo zigzag, com uma sÃrie de estados que se cruzam, levando a um comportamento semelhante ao de um poÃo quÃntico duplo sob um campo elÃtrico perpendicular a ele. / The possibility of obtaining two-dimensional systems from layered materials has been attracting a lot of research on these materials, since their few layer properties are very different from their respective bulk ones, which opens up great possibilities in technological applications. Black phosphorus exhibit several interesting properties, among them, a direct energy gap, that enables the possibility of fabricating electronic devices (in contrast e.g. with the gapless semi-metallic graphene), and which can be tuned by the number of layers, varying from 0.3 eV for a bulk up to 2.0 eV for a monolayer, thus covering a relatively large range of the energy spectrum for optical devices. Besides, the fact that this is a very anisotropic material has brought even more attention to it, towards novel ways of exploring this anisotropy in new technologies. In this work, we have derived the effective mass approximation from the tight binding model and used the out coming approximate Hamiltonian to study nanostructures based on monolayer black phosphorus. In this model, the anisotropic features of black phosphorus are reflected in the difference between effective masses in different directions. Firstly, we compare the finite difference methods with the analytical solution for a circular quantum dot, which, due to its elliptical contour of energy bands, is given by Mathieu functions for solving the resulting SchrÃdinger equation. With this comparison, we verify the compatibility between these methods. Within the effective mass approximation, we investigate the effect of external electromagnetic fields on a black phosphorus quantum ring, thus analysing the effect of the interplay between these fields and the system anisotropy on its electronic states. Due to the anisotropy, under an applied magnetic field, this ring does not exhibit Aharonov-Bohm oscillations, which can be recovered by assuming an elliptic ring-like confinement. We also investigate the effect of an external electric field applied in x and y directions in a black phosphorus quantum ring on its energy levels. Our results show that, as a consequence of a wave function localization induced by mass anisotropy, energy levels decay quadratically (Stark effect) with the field if it is applied along the armchair direction, whereas an almost linear Stark effect, along with a series of crossing excited states, is observed for a field applied in the zigzag direction, leading to a behavior that is in close resemblance to a double quantum well under a perpendicular electric field.

[EN] The possibility of knowing people traits on the basis of what they write is a field of growing interest named author profiling. To infer a user's gender, age, native language or personality traits, simply by analysing her texts, opens a wide range of possibilities from the point of view of forensics, security and marketing. Furthermore, social media proliferation, which allows for new communication models and human relations, strengthens this wide range of possibilities to bounds never seen before. Idiosyncrasy inherent to social media makes them a special environment of communication, where freedom of expression, informality and spontaneous generation of topics and trends, enhances the knowledge of the daily reality of people in their use of language. However, the same idiosyncrasy makes difficult, or extremely costly, the application of linguistic techniques. In this work we have proposed EmoGraph, a graph-based approach with the aim at modelling the way that users express their emotions, and the way they include them in their discourse, bearing in mind not only their frequency of occurrence, but also their position and relationship with other elements in the discourse. Our starting hypothesis is that users express themselves and their emotions differently depending on their age and gender, and besides, we think that this is independent on their language and social media where they write. We have collaborated in the creation of a common framework of evaluation at the PAN Lab of CLEF, generating resources that allowed us to verify our hypothesis achieving comparable and competitive results with the best ones obtained by other researchers on the field. In addition, we have investigated whether the expression of emotions would help to differentiate among users of different varieties of the same language, for example, Spanish from Spain, Mexican and Argentinian, or Portuguese from Portugal and Brazil. Our hypothesis is that the variation among languages is based more on lexical aspects, and we have corroborated it after comparing EmoGraph with representations based on word patterns, distributed representations and a representation that uses the whole vocabulary, but reducing its dimensionality to only 6 features per class, what is suitable for its application to big data environments such as social media. / [ES] La posibilidad de conocer rasgos de una persona a partir únicamente de los textos que escribe se ha convertido en un área de gran interés denominada author profiling. Ser capaz de inferir de un usuario su sexo, edad, idioma nativo o los rasgos de su personalidad, simplemente analizando sus textos, abre todo un abanico de posibilidades desde el punto de vista forense, de la seguridad o del marketing. Además, la proliferación de los medios sociales, que favorece nuevos modelos de comunicación y relación humana, potencia este abanico de posibilidades hasta cotas nunca antes vistas. La idiosincrasia inherente a estos medios sociales hace de ellos un entorno de comunicación especial, donde la libertad de expresión, la informalidad y la generación espontánea de temáticas y tendencias propician el acercamiento a la realidad diaria de las personas en su uso de la lengua. Sin embargo, esa misma idiosincrasia hace que en muchas ocasiones la aplicación de técnicas lingüísticas de análisis no sea posible, o sea extremadamente costoso. En este trabajo hemos propuesto EmoGraph, una representación basada en grafos con el objetivo de modelar el modo en que los usuarios expresan sus emociones, y el modo en que las articulan en el marco de su discurso, teniendo en consideración no sólo su frecuencia, sino también su posición y relación con y respecto a los elementos del mismo. Nuestra hipótesis de partida es que los usuarios se expresan y expresan sus emociones de manera diferente dependiendo de su edad y sexo, y además, pensamos que esto es así independientemente de su idioma y del medio donde escriban. Hemos colaborado en la creación de un marco común de evaluación en el laboratorio PAN del CLEF, generando recursos que nos han permitido verificar nuestra hipótesis y conseguir resultados comparables y competitivos con los mejores resultados obtenidos por los investigadores del área. Además, hemos querido investigar si la expresión de emociones permitiría diferenciar entre hablantes de diferentes variedades de una misma lengua, por ejemplo españoles, mexicanos o argentinos, o portugueses y brasileños. Nuestra hipótesis es que la variación entre lenguas se basa más en aspectos léxicos, y así lo hemos corroborado tras comparar EmoGraph con representaciones basadas en patrones, representaciones distribuidas y una representación que toma en consideración el vocabulario completo, pero reduciendo su dimensionalidad a únicamente 6 características por clase y que se erige idónea para su aplicación en entornos big data como los medios sociales. / [CAT] La possibilitat de conèixer trets d'una persona únicament a partir dels textos que escriu s'ha convertit en una àrea de gran interès anomenada author profiling. Ser capaç d'inferir d'un usuari el sexe, l'edat, l'idioma nadiu o els trets de la seua personalitat tan sols analitzant els seus textos, obre tot un ventall de possibilitats des del punt de vista forense, de la seguretat o del màrketing. A més, la proliferació dels mitjans socials, que afavoreix nous models de comunicació i de relació humana, potencia aquest ventall de possibilitats fins a cotes que no s'han vist fins ara. La idiosincràsia inherent a aquests mitjans socials en fa d'ells un entorn de comunicació especial, on la llibertat d'expressió, la informalitat i la generació espontània de temàtiques i tendències propicien l'aproximació a la realitat diària de les persones en l'ús que fan de la llengua. Tanmateix, aquesta idiosincràsia fa que en moltes ocasions no es puguin aplicar tècniques lingüístiques d'anàlisi, o que fer-ho resulti extremadament costós. En aquest treball hem proposat EmoGraph, una representació basada en grafs que té l'objectiu de modelar la manera en què els usaris expressen les seves emocions, i la manera com les articulen en el marc de llur discurs, considerant-ne no només la freqüència sinó també la posició i la relació amb i respecte als elements del discurs. La nostra hipòtesi de partida és que els usuaris s'expressen i expressen llurs emocions de manera diferent depenent de l'edat i el sexe, i a més, pensem que això és així independentment de l'idioma i del mitjà en què escriguin. Hem col·laborat en la creació d'un marc comú d'avaluació al laboratori PAN del CLEF, generant recursos que ens han permès verificar la nostra hipòtesi i aconseguir resultats comparables i competitius amb els millors resultats obtinguts pels investigadors de l'àrea. A més, hem volgut investigar si l'expressió d'emocions permetria establir diferències enre parlants de diferents varietats d'una mateixa llengua, per exemple espanyols, mexicans o argentins, o portuguesos i brasilers. La nostra hipòtesi és que la variació entre llengües es basa més en aspectes lèxics, i així ho hem corroborat després de comparar EmoGraph amb representacions basades en patrons, representacions distribuïdes i una representació que considera el vocabulari complet, però reduint-ne la dimensionalitat només a 6 característiques per classe i que s'erigeix de manera idònia per a aplicar-la en entorns big data com els mitjans socials. / Rangel Pardo, FM. (2016). Author Profiling en Social Media: Identificación de Edad, Sexo y Variedad del Lenguaje [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/67270 / TESIS

This thesis contains the results of the extensive study into the synthesis of nickel niobate (NiNb2O6) including the formation of what was a previously unreported polymorph of the material, as well as the magnetic properties of both cobalt niobate (CoNb2O6) and nickel niobate using techniques including SQUID magnetometry, powder and single crystal x-ray scattering, powder and single crystal neutron scattering and muon spin rotation/relaxation. In cobalt niobate we found extremely long relaxation times in the heat capacity which showed up strongly in muon spin rotation experiments but not in neutron measurements. Additionally, with field applied to the system we see the emergence of spin-wave like structures in the neutron scattering data. Within cobalt niobate the strongest interaction is ferromagnetic and along the chain. The chains themselves are laid out on a triangular fashion and interact, although far more weakly, in an antiferromagnetic manner. This triangular patterning as well as an antiferromagnetic interaction results in interchain frustration, which protects the quasi-1D nature of the system due to the difficulty generated in creating 3D order. In nickel niobate we found that growth conditions caused highly variable changes, and we were able to create two different polymorphs. One polymorph was in the same space group as cobalt niobate, which gave us an opportunity to explore the magnetic difference between a spin-½ and spin-1 magnetic system and in nickel niobate in the new space group we performed an ab initio characterization solving the unit cell structure, the magnetic structure with neutron scattering as well as a magnetic characterization with SQUID magnetometry and muon spin rotation, allowing us to contrast the significant crystallographic differences. For the new polymorph we were able to determine its magnetic structure, characterized by Ising-like spins arranged in frustrated tetrahedra with three of the four points lying in the same plane as the spin, and for both materials we were able to use zero-field μSR data to estimate behaviour near the critical point and determine a critical exponent near the magnetic transitions. In both polymorphs there is evidence of constrained magnetism or reduced dimensionality, although the evidence for low dimensionality is much stronger in the columbite polymorph. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis examines two different niobium-based compounds: cobalt niobate (CoNb2O6) and nickel niobate (NiNb2O6). In these systems the cobalt and nickel atoms provide interesting magnetic properties. Within a magnetic material, the magnetic atoms tend to have their spins align in certain ways. The atoms themselves are fixed to particular sites by the way the material is assembled; an atomic framework. In the case of cobalt niobate, the magnetic atoms are arranged in well-separated chains so that a magnetic atom interacts strongly with its magnetic neighbours within a chain, and weakly with ones that are further away. This is an example of a material that is called `low dimensional'. The chains themselves form triangular patterns, and the interactions between chains are both weaker and antialigned, which creates a frustrated competition between the chains, protecting the low dimensional state by creating conditions where it is hard for all the spins in the material to order. For nickel niobate, the magnetic moments all want to anti-align, or be pointing in the opposite direction as its nearest neighbour. The magnetism is `frustrated' because each magnetic atom is tetrahedrally connected to three other atoms, so it cannot meet that condition. This can be visualized by drawing a triangle and trying to make each corner have an arrow pointing up or down. The third corner of the triangle cannot satisfy this requirement for its neighbours (one up and one down arrow). Both decreased dimensionality and frustration can lead to the emergence of novel quantum states of matter at low temperature. This thesis explores these materials with that in mind.

Au cours de cette thèse, nous étudions la compétition entre les états onde de densité de charge (ODC) et supraconducteur dans le composé multi-bandes à deux chaines TTF[Ni(dmit)2]2. Nous avons réalisé des mesures de résistivité, de pouvoir thermoélectrique et de conductivité thermique sous pression hydrostatique jusqu’aux basses températures. A basse pression, deux ondes de densité de charge détectées par mesures de rayons X et observées par nos mesures de résistivité transverse sont associées aux bandes 1D LUMO et HOMOI de la chaine Ni(dmit)2. A 12kbar, la fusion de ces deux instabilités est associée à l’emboîtement des bandes LUMO avec les bandes HOMOI à travers le point Γ de la première zone de Brillouin. A 18kbar et sur un intervalle de 5-6kbar, on observe un pic de commensurabilité attribué au vecteur d’emboîtement commensurable 2kF = 1/3b*.La supraconductivité est observée à partir de 2kbar et jusqu’à 22kbar avec une température critique 0.6K qui augmente avec la pression et est corrélée à la variation des températures de transition ODC. La supraconductivité est associée à la bande 2D HOMOII du Ni(dmit)2. Les mesures de champ magnétique critique ont permis de donner des informations sur l’évolution de la texture de coexistence métal- ODC en fonction de la pression. Elles mettent aussi en évidence une supraconductivité non conventionnelle avec des nœuds dans le gap.Ces résultats nous ont permis de revisiter le diagramme de phase Température-Pression de ce composé qui s'est révélé beaucoup plus riche que ce qui avait été rapporté jusqu’à maintenant. / In this thesis, we studied the competition between charge density wave (CDW) and superconductivity in the 1D multiband compound TTF[Ni(dmit)2]2. Resistivity, thermoelectric power and thermal conductivity measurements have been performed under pressure and down to very low temperatures.At low pressure, two charge density waves, detected by X ray measurements and observed in our transverse resistivity measurements, are associated to the 1D bands LUMO and HOMO of the Ni(dmit)2 chains. At 12kbar, the fusion of those two CDWs is associated to the nesting of the LUMO bands with the HOMO ones through the Γ point of the Brillouin zone. At 18 and around 5-6kbar, we observe a commensurability pic due to the commensurate wave vector 2kF=1/3b*.From 2 to 22kbar, we observe a superconductive transition at a critical temperature 0.6K which grow with pressure and is correlated to critical temperature of CDW transition. The superconductivity is associated to the 2D band HOMOII of the Ni(dmit)2 chains. Measurements of the upper critical field gave information about the evolution with pressure of metal-charge density wave regions. They bring out the unconventional nature of the superconductivity and the presence of node in the gap.Thanks to those results, we obtained a more rich Temperature – Pressure phase diagram of the TTF[Ni(dmit)2]2 than the existing one.

Les gaz quantiques atomiques constituent un outil de choix pour étudier la physique à N corps grâce à leurs nombreux paramètres de contrôle. Ils offrent la possibilité d’explorer la physique en basse dimension, modifiée par rapport au cas à trois dimensions (3D) à cause du rôle accru des fluctuations. Dans ce travail, nous étudions le gaz de Bose à deux dimensions (2D) avec un confine-ment original dans le plan atomique, uniforme et de motif arbitraire. Ces gaz2D et uniformes, développés sur un montage existant, ont été installés sur un nouveau montage grâce à des potentiels optiques polyvalents.Nous présentons une série d’expériences exploitant cette géométrie flexible.D’abord, nous étudions le comportement statique et dynamique d’un gaz uni-forme lors de la transition d’un état 3D normal vers un état 2D superfluide.Nous observons l’établissement de la cohérence de phase dans un gaz à l’équilibre puis nous montrons l’apparition après une trempe de défauts topologiques dont le nombre est comparé à la prédiction de Kibble-Zurek. Ensuite, nous étudions grâce au nouveau montage les effets collectifs dans l’interaction lumière-matière, où les propriétés de résonance d’un nuage d’atomes dense sont fortement modifiées par rapport à celles d’un atome unique. Enfin, nous proposons deux protocoles pour le nouveau montage. Le premier permet d’évaporer de manière uniforme un gaz 2D grâce au réseau incliné du confinement à 2D. Le second propose de produire des supercourants de manière déterministe dans des pièges en anneaux, soit par condensation dans un champ de jauge, soit en réalisant une pompe à vortex topologique. / Degenerate atomic gases are a versatile tool to study many-body physics. They offer the possibility to explore low-dimension physics, which strongly differs from the three dimensional (3D) case due to the enhanced role of fluctuations. In this work, we study degenerate 2D Bose gases whose original in-plane confinement is uniform and of arbitrary shape. These 2D uniform traps, which we first developed on an existing set-up, were subsequently implemented on a newset-up using versatile optical potentials. We present a series of experiments that take advantage of this flexible geometry. First, we study the static and dynamic behaviours of a uniform gas at the transition between a 3D normal and a 2D superfluid state. We observe the establishement of extended phase coherence, followed, as the gas is quench cooled, by the apparition of topological defects whose scaling is compared to the Kibble-Zurek prediction. Second, we present the first results of the new set-up : we investigate collective effects in light-matter interactions, where the resonance properties of a dense ensemble of atoms are strongly modified with respect to the single atom ones. Last, we develop two experimental proposals for the new set-up. The first one studies how a 2D gas can be uniformly evaporated using the tilted lattice providing the 2D confinement. In the second one, we propose to produce su-percurrents in a deterministic way in ring-shaped traps either by condensing inan artificial gauge field or by implementing a topological vortex pump.