While the free electron model can often be surprisingly successful in describing properties of solids, there are plenty of materials in which interactions between electrons are too significant to be neglected. These strongly correlated systems sometimes exhibit rather unexpected, unusual and useful phenomena, understanding of which is one of the aims of condensed matter physics. Heat capacity measurements of paramagnetic YFe$_{2}$Ge$_{2}$ give a Sommerfeld coefficient of about 100 mJ mol$^{−1}$ K$^{−2}$, which is about an order of magnitude higher than the value predicted by band structure calculations. This suggests the existence of strong electronic correlations in the compound, potentially due to proximity to an antiferromagnetic quantum critical point (QCP). Existence of the latter is also indicated by the non-Fermi liquid T$^{3/2}$ behaviour of the low temperature resistivity. Below 1.8 K a superconducting phase develops in the material, making it a rare case of a non-pnictide and non-chalcogenide iron based superconductor with the 1-2-2 structure. This thesis describes growth and study of a new generation of high quality YFe$_{2}$Ge$_{2}$ samples with residual resistance ratios reaching 200. Measurements of resistivity, heat capacity and magnetic susceptibility confirm the intrinsic and bulk character of the superconductivity, which is also argued to be of an unconventional nature. In order to test the hypothesis of the nearby QCP, resistance measurements under high pressure of up to 35 kbar have been conducted. Pressure dependence of the critical temperature of the superconductivity has been found to be rather weak. μSR measurements have been performed, but provided limited information due to sample inhomogeneity resulting in a broad distribution of the critical temperature. While the superconductivity is the result of an effective attraction between electrons, under different circumstances the electronic properties of a system can instead be dictated by the Coulomb repulsion. This is the case for another transition metal based compound NiS$_{2}$, which is a Mott insulator. Applying hydrostatic pressure of about 30 kbar brings the material across the Mott metal-insulator transition (MIT) into the metallic phase. We have used the tunnel diode oscillator (TDO) technique to measure quantum oscillations in the metallised state of NiS$_{2}$, making it possible to track the evolution of the principal Fermi surface and the associated effective mass as a function of pressure. New results are presented which access a wider pressure range than previous studies and provide strong evidence that the effective carrier mass diverges close to the Mott MIT, as expected within the Brinkman-Rice scenario and predicted in dynamical mean field theory calculations. Quantum oscillations have been measured at pressures as close to the insulating phase as 33 kbar and as high as 97 kbar. In addition to providing a valuable insight into the mechanism of the Mott MIT, this study has also demonstrated the potential of the TDO technique for studying materials at high pressures.

Through our whole work we study the XY model with all its entirety, a particular spin model where spins are confined in a plane. We try to bring out a good understanding of this model with all different types of phases and phase transition, it undergoes in critical situations. We conceive of these external conditions from very different physical models like High Tc Superconductor, Ultracold atoms in optical lattice which are in focus of recent research. Firstly we model high Tc Superconductors with very simple 2D XY model to get an idea about the diamagnetic response exhibited by these materials when kept in a external magnetic field. This modeling is reasonable because most of the physics of cuprate High Tc Superconductors are governed by their 2D copper oxide planes which insists us to consider 2D models. Later we shifted to a more realistic 3D anisotropic XY model , as the coupling between cuprates plane may have a considerable role in devising physics of those materials. We particularly focus on the 2D to 3D crossover effect on magnetisation showed by these models, with keeping an eye on how all these can be relate to the experimentally acquired magnetisation profile of High Tc Supercondutors. On the second project we investigate on the phase diagram of a fully frustrated 2-leg ladder Bose Hubbard model. After mapping it properly to a classical model, a bi-layer Fully Frustrated XY model on square lattice, we found that the frustration leads to the emergence of a new phase "Chiral Mott insulator(CMI)" sandwiched between "Chiral Superfluid(CSF)" and "regular Mott insulator(MI)" phase. We divide the whole report into four parts. The first chapter is basically contain-ing introductory part comprising the motivation. In the second chapter we discuss various types of phases and phase transitions of the 2D & 3D XY models. We try to address their critical behaviors. In the third chapter and onwards we consider our model in external magnetic field and observe magnetisation in these systems. Here we specially focus on 2D to 3D crossover effect on magtisation measurement. Lastly in the fourth chapter we bring out a correspondence of XY model with the 2 leg ladder fully frustrated Bose Hubbard Model. There we report the emergence of a new phase, Chiral Mott Insulator(CMI) due to frustration in system.

L'étude des phases de la matière est d'un intérêt fondamental en physique. La théorie de Landau, qui est le "modèle standard" des transitions de phases, caractérise les phases de la matière en termes des brisures de symétrie, décrites par un paramètre d'ordre local. Cette théorie a permis la description de phénomènes remarquables tels que la condensation de Bose-Einstein, la supraconductivité et la superfluidité.<p><p>Il existe cependant des phases qui échappent à la description de Landau. Il s'agit des phases quantiques topologiques. Celles-ci constituent un nouveau paradigme et sont caractérisées par un ordre global défini par un invariant topologique. Ce dernier classe les objets ou systèmes de la manière suivante: deux objets appartiennent à la même classe topologique s'il est possible de déformer continument le premier objet en le second. Cette propriété globale rend le système robuste contre des perturbations locales telles que le désordre. <p><p>Les atomes froids constituent une plateforme idéale pour simuler les phases quantiques topologiques. Depuis l'invention du laser, les progrès en physique atomique et moléculaire ont permis un contrôle de la dynamique et des états internes des atomes. La réalisation de gaz quantiques,tels que les condensats de Bose-Einstein et les gaz dégénérés de Fermi, ainsi que la réalisation de réseaux optiques à l'aide de faisceaux lasers, permettent d'étudier ces nouvelles phases de la matière et de simuler aussi la physique du solide cristallin.<p><p>Dans cette thèse, nous nous concentrons sur l'etude d'isolants topologiques avec des atomes froids. Ces derniers sont isolants de volume mais possèdent des états de surface qui sont conducteurs, protégés par un invariant topologique. Nous traitons trois sujets principaux. Le premier sujet concerne la génération dynamique d'un isolant topologique de Mott. Ici, les interactions engendrent l'isolant topologique et ce, sans champ de jauge de fond. Le second sujet concerne la détection des isolants topologiques dans les expériences d'atomes froids. Nous proposons deux méthodes complémentaires pour caractériser celles-ci. Finalement, le troisième sujet aborde des thèmes au-delà de la définition standard d'isolant topologique. Nous avons d'une part proposé un algorithme efficace pour calculer la conductivité de Berry, la contribution topologique à la conductivité transverse lorsque l'énergie de Fermi se trouve dans une bande d'énergie. D'autre part, nous avons utilisé des méthodes pour caractériser les propriétés quantiques topologiques de systèmes non-périodiques.<p><p>L'étude des isolants topologiques dans les expériences d'atomes froids est un sujet de recherche récent et en pleine expansion. Dans ce contexte, cette thèse apporte plusieurs contributions théoriques pour la simulation de systèmes quantiques sur réseau avec des atomes froids. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

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Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 16 octobre 2023) / Ce mémoire cherche à définir l'action environnementale de trois fondations philanthropiques états-uniennes -- le Rockefeller Brothers Fund, le German Marshall Fund et la Charles Stewart Mott Foundation -- en Europe centrale entre 1989 et 2003. Il met en évidence leur discours, leurs choix et leurs processus et montre comment leur aide à des donataires du milieu environnemental s'insère dans une démarche plus large de démocratisation de la région. Il postule en effet que l'action des fondations est indissociable de leur volonté de contribuer au développement et plus tard au maintien de la société civile en Pologne, en Hongrie, en République tchèque et en Slovaquie. Cette volonté repose elle-même sur la conception fondamentalement états-unienne qu'entretiennent les fondations sur le fonctionnement d'une démocratie, qui présuppose la nécessité de l'existence d'un secteur à but non lucratif professionnalisé. / This thesis seeks to define the environmental action of three American philanthropic foundations -- the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the German Marshall Fund and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation -- in Central Europe between 1989 and 2003. It highlights their discourse, their choices and their processes and shows how their assistance to donors from the environmental sector fits into a broader process of democratization of the region. It postulates that their action is inseparable from their desire to contribute to the development and later to the continuous support of civil society in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This desire is itself based on a fundamentally American conception of what is a democracy, which presupposes the need for a professionalized non-profit sector.

This thesis is concerned with the influence of nanoscale boundaries and interfaces upon the electronic processes that occur within the inorganic semiconductors. Inorganic semiconductor nanowires and their blends with semiconducting polymers have been investigated using state-of-the-art ultrafast optical techniques to provide information on the sub-picosecond to nanosecond photoexcitation dynamics in these systems. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the theory and background behind the work and present a literature review of previous work utilising nanowires in hybrid organic photovoltaic devices, revealing the performances to date. The experimental methods used during the thesis are detailed in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 describes the crucial roles of surface passivation on the ultrafast dynamics of exciton formation in gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanowires. By passivating the surface states of nanowires, exciton formation via the bimolecular conversion of electron-hole plasma can observed over few hundred picoseconds, in-contrast to the fast carrier trapping in 10 ps observed in the uncoated nanowires. Chapter 5 presents a novel method to passivate the surface-states of GaAs nanowires using semiconducting polymer. The carrier lifetime in the nanowires can be strongly enhanced when the ionization potential of the overcoated semiconducting polymer is smaller than the work function of the nanowires and the surface native oxide layers of nanowires are removed. Finally, Chapter 6 shows that the carrier cooling in the type-II wurtzite-zincblend InP nanowires is reduced by order-of magnitude during the spatial charge-transfer across the type-II heterojunction. The works decribed in this thesis reveals the crucial role of surface-states and bulk defects on the carrier dynamics of semiconductor nanowires. In-addition, a novel approach to passivate the surface defect states of nanowires using semiconducting polymers was developed.