This thesis focuses on the interplay of the spin-orbit coupling, the electronic correlations and the bandwidth energy scales, along with the lattice distortions seen in perovskite iridates. In particular, we study the magnetic phases in these materials and the insulator to metal transition that occurs as the dimensionality of the system is changed. Motivated by the novel magnetic phases seen in the Sr2IrO4 system, we study the band structures of three materials in the Sr(n+1)Ir(n)O(3n+1) Ruddlesden-Popper series by use of a tight-binding model. From the effect of spin-orbit coupling, we see that the relevant bands near the Fermi energy are indeed made of effective J=1/2 states. This spin-orbit separation of the bands creates effectively smaller bandwidth which can then be split via magnetic ordering driven by electronic correlations. By the use of a self-consistent mean-field theory, we derive the ordering for each of the three materials studied and show that the nature of the magnetic ordering is highly dependent on the lattice structure. The ordering in the bilayer Sr3Ir2O7, which has been a topic of debate in recent experimental studies, is understood within the current approach to be a collinear antiferromagnetic order, in agreement with the latest results. Given that the iridate systems have large spin-orbit coupling, and that the topic of topological insulators has become a very popular subject of research, we discuss the proximity of the perovskite iridates to topological insulators. Since the SrIrO3 material displays a semimetal structure with nodal dispersion near the Fermi level, we looked at an extra term in the Hamiltonian that could lift the nodal lines and turn the system into an insulator. Further studies of the parity eigenvalues of the bands at each time reversal invariant momentum point confirms that for a range of this extra term, a topological phase can be achieved. A discussion on material realization of such a phase is also given where we suggest that a Sr2IrRhO6 superstructure might be a good candidate to achieve this state.

We study the spin dynamics in a high-mobility two dimensional electron gas (2DEG) system with generic spin-orbit interactions (SOIs). We derive a set of spin dynamic equations which capture the purely exponential to the damped oscillatory spin evolution modes observed in different regimes of SOI strength. Hence we provide a full treatment of the D'yakonov-Perel's mechanism by using the microscopic linear response theory from the weak to the strong SOI limit. We show that the damped oscillatory modes appear when the electron scattering time is larger than half of the spin precession time due to the SOI, in agreement with recent observations. We propose a new way to measure the scattering time and the relative strength of Rashba and linear Dresselhaus SOIs based on these modes and optical grating experiments. We discuss the physical interpretation of each of these modes in the context of Rabi oscillation. In the finite temperature, We study the spin dynamics in the presence of impurity and electron-electron (e-e) scattering in a III-V semiconductor quantum well. Starting from the Keldysh formalism, we develop the spin-charge dynamic equation at finite temperature in the presence of inelastic scattering which provide a new approach to describe the spin relaxation from the weak to the strong spin-orbit coupling (SOC) regime. In the weak SOC regime, our theory shows that when the system is near the SU(2) symmetry point, because the spin relaxation due to DP mechanism is suppressed dramatically, the spin relaxation is dominated by the Elliott-Yafet (EY) mechanism in a wide temperature regime. The non-monotonic temperature dependence of enhanced-lifetime of spin helix mode is due to the competition between the DP and EY mechanisms. In the strong SOC regime, the our theory is consistent to the previous theoretical results at zero temperature.

Thesis (M.S.)--Missouri University of Science and Technology, 2010. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed April 7, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-77).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1943. / Typescript (carbon copy). Some plates accompanied with leaf of explanatory text. Most ill. are laid in photographs. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaf [29]).

La spintronique est principalement basée sur le phénomène d’accumulation de spin, inhérent à la circulation d’un courant électrique aux interfaces entre des matériaux ferromagnétiques et non magnétiques. Ces accumulations sont classiquement obtenues dans des empilements multicouches pour lesquels les épaisseurs des couches sont inférieures aux longueurs caractéristiques du transport dépendant en spin. Il est ainsi possible de générer dans ces multicouches des effets de magnétorésistance ou de transfert de spin.Le développement de procédés de nanofabrication permet aujourd’hui de créer des nanodispositifs dont les dimensions latérales sont inférieures aux longueurs caractéristiques du transport dépendant en spin, et donc de mettre en jeu ces mêmes phénomènes. Au cours de ma thèse j’ai étudié différentes nanostructures latérales F/N, montrant qu’il est possible de tirer avantage de la géométrie tridimensionnelle des structures et des différentes orientations possibles des spins injectés. Des études de transport ont en particulier été réalisées dans les régimes colinéaires et non colinéaires, afin d’étudier les conséquences de la non-colinéarité sur les effets d’accumulation de spin et de magnétorésistance.Après un chapitre d’introduction au transport électronique dépendant en spin, le second démontre l’intérêt de l’utilisation de l’alliage CoFe dans la réalisation de structures latérales. Le troisième chapitre explore les nouvelles opportunités offertes par les structures latérales dans le cas du transport colinéaire. Le cas non-colinéaire du transport de spin au travers d’un matériau ferromagnétique est ensuite examiné à l’aide de mesures d’absorption de spin et de mesures d’effet Hanle. Enfin, l’exploitation des purs courants de spin en vue de réaliser des structures fonctionnelles à effets de magnétorésistance est étudiée au cours des Chapitres V et VI. Des nanostructures dont la géométrie tire parti des trois directions de l’espace, basées sur un transport de spin à la fois vertical et latéral, sont notamment présentée dans le Chapitre VI. / Spintronics is mainly based on the phenomenon of spin accumulation, which is inherent to the circulation of an electric current at the interfaces between ferromagnetic and non-magnetic materials. These accumulations are conventionally obtained in multilayers for which the thicknesses of the layers are smaller than the characteristic lengths of the spin-dependent transport. It is thus possible to generate in these multilayers magnetoresistances or spin transfer effects.The development of nanofabrication processes makes it nowadays possible to create nanodevices whose lateral dimensions are less than the characteristic lengths of the spin-dependent transport, and thus to bring into play these same phenomena. During my thesis I studied different F / N lateral nanostructures, showing that it is possible to take advantage of the three-dimensional geometry of the structures, and of the different possible orientations of the injected spins. In particular, transport studies have been carried out in collinear and non-collinear regimes, in order to study the consequences of the non-collinearity on the spin accumulations and magnetoresistances.After an introductory chapter on spin-dependent electron transport, the second chapter demonstrates the interest of the CoFe alloy in lateral structures. The third chapter explores the new opportunities offered by lateral structures in the case of collinear transport. The non-collinear case of spin transport through a ferromagnetic material is then examined using spin absorption measurements and Hanle measurements. Finally, the exploitation of pure spin currents in order to realize functional devices is studied in Chapters V and VI. In particular, new nanostructures whose geometry takes advantage of the three directions of space (based on both vertical and lateral spin transport) are presented in Chapter VI.

Thesis (MTech (Electrical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / A precise orbit propagator was developed for implementing on a CubeSat's on-board computer for real-time orbital position and velocity determination and prediction. Knowledge of the accurate orbital position and velocity of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Cubesat is required for various applications such as antenna and imager pointing. Satellite motion is governed by a number of forces other than Earth's gravity alone. The inclusion of perturbation forces such as Earth's aspheric gravity, third body attraction (e.g. Moon and Sun), atmospheric drag and solar radiation pressure, is subsequently required to improve the accuracy of an orbit propagator. Precise orbit propagation is achieved by numerically integrating a set of coupled second order differential equations derived from satellite's perturbed equations of motion. For the purpose of this study two numerical integrators were selected: RK4 - Fourth order Runge Kutta method and RKF78 - results from embedding RK7 into RK8. The former is a single-step integrator while the latter is a multi-step integrator. These integrators were selected for their stability, high accuracy and computational efficiency. An orbit propagation software tool is presented in this study. Considering the processing power of Central Processing Unit (CPU) of CubeSat's on-board computer and a trade-off between precision and computational cost, the 10 x 10 and 20 x 20 gravity field models, the Exponential atmospheric model and Jacchia 70 static atmospheric model, were implemented. A 60 x 60 gravity field model is also investigated for reference. For validation purpose the developed software tool results were compared with results from Systems Tool Kit (STK) and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) using SUNSAT satellite reference orbit. / National Research Foundation

O propósito deste trabalho é estudar a existência de solução periódica para problemas de oscilação não linear de barras submetidas a forças periódicas. Estudaremos concretamente dois problemas, que serão interpretados como equações diferenciais abstratas de segunda ordem cuja classe foi considerada em Ceron e Lopes [1]. Para garantir a existência de solução periódica dos problemas considerados, mostraremos que a aplicação de Poincaré S é limitada dissipativa e alfa-contração. Isso garante a existência de um atrator invariante compacto e a existência de um ponto fixo de S, o que é equivalente a existência da solução periódica. / Our aim in this work is to study the existence of periodic solution to oscillation in nonlinear problems of beams submitted to periodic forcing. We will study concretely two problems, which can be interpreted as an abstract second order diferential equation studied by Ceron and Lopes [1]. Our intention is to prove the existence of periodic solution to these problems. To this end, we will show that the Poincaré map S is uniform ultimately bounded and alpha-contraction. Thus we have the existence of invariant compact attractor, therefore S have a fixed point, which is equivalent the existence of a periodic solution.

During the past few years, a worldwide interest and unanimous consensus has arisen on personal communication services (PCS), where satellites can play a crucial role in a global scenario for the provision of PCS's all over the world. While for maritime and aeronautical communication services, the mature technologies of geostationary earth orbit (GEO) satellite systems seem the most suitable for present and future enhanced systems, other orbital configuration such as low earth orbit (LEO) and medium earth orbit (MEO) are being considered for the provision of satellite personal communication services to hand-held mobile terminals. One of the main objectives of personal communication services is the capability to provide personal (or continuous) mobility, communication anytime, anywhere. In general, satellite systems can provide a limited capacity with respect to terrestrial networks, nevertheless they are particularly suited in order to cover large terrestrial areas offering a scarce amount of traffic. The problem of radio frequency management for mobile applications has been addressed by World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC-92). One of the most relevant decisions taken at WARC-92 was to allocate the radio determination satellite system (RDSS) 1610-1626.5 MHz (L-Band) and 2483.5-2500 MHz (S-Band) slots to LEO satellite services on a worldwide, primary basis. This enables "big LEO's" to have a reasonable amount of spectram (i.e. capacity) to serve a substantial number of subscribers. However, the available amount of spectrum at L-band and S-band out of WARC-92 appears hardly sufficient to permit several systems to operate. Hence, to enable all the systems to operate and fulfil the capacity demand, S-PCNs need to share the limited available frequency spectrum. In this thesis we have proposed and evaluated a new fully overlapped band sharing scheme for mobile satellite systems operating in a land mobile satellite channel environment. The results show that the mobile satellite systems can share the limited available bandwidth. However, the overall system capacity of the MSS has been reduced due to excess intersystem interference. In order to reduce the excess inter-system interference a new enhanced overlapped band sharing protocol is proposed. The performance of this optimised band sharing scheme outperforms the conventional band segmentation scheme. Thus, achieving superior overall system capacity.

This thesis is concerned with the quantum Dirac magnetic monopole and two classes of its generalisations. The first of these are certain analogues of the Dirac magnetic monopole on coadjoint orbits of compact Lie groups, equipped with the normal metric. The original Dirac magnetic monopole on the unit sphere S^2 corresponds to the particular case of the coadjoint orbits of SU(2). The main idea is that the Hilbert space of the problem, which is the space of L^2-sections of a line bundle over the orbit, can be interpreted algebraically as an induced representation. The spectrum of the corresponding Schodinger operator is described explicitly using tools of representation theory, including the Frobenius reciprocity and Kostant's branching formula. In the second part some discrete versions of Dirac magnetic monopoles on S^2 are introduced and studied. The corresponding quantum Hamiltonian is a magnetic Schodinger operator on a regular polyhedral graph. The construction is based on interpreting the vertices of the graph as points of a discrete homogeneous space G/H, where G is a binary polyhedral subgroup of SU(2). The edges are constructed using a specially selected central element from the group algebra, which is used also in the definition of the magnetic Schrodinger operator together with a character of H. The spectrum is computed explicitly using representation theory by interpreting the Hilbert space as an induced representation.

Magnetic random­access memory (MRAM) devices have been widely studied since the 1960s. During this time, the size of spintronic devices has continued to decrease. Conse quently, there is now an urgent need for new low­dimensional magnetic materials to mimic the traditional structures of spintronics at the nanoscale. We also require new effective mechanisms to conduct the main functions of memory devices, which are: reading, writ ing, and storing data. To date, most research efforts have focused on MRAM devices based on magnetic tun nel junction (MTJ), such as a conventional field­driven MRAM and spin­transfer torque (STT)­MRAM devices. Consequently, many efforts are currently focusing on new alterna tives using different techniques, such as spin­orbit torque (SOT) and magnetic skyrmions (a skyrmion is the smallest potential disruption to a uniform magnet required to obtain more effective memory devices). The most promising memory devices are SOT­MRAMs and skyrmion­based memories. This study investigates the magnetic properties of 1T­phase vanadium dichalcogenide (VXY) Janus monolayers, where X, Y= S, Se, or Te (i.e., monolayers that exhibit inversion symme try breaking due to the presence of different chalcogen elements). This study is developed along four directions: (I) the nature of the magnetism and the SOT effect of Janus mono layers; (II) the Dzyaloshinskii Moriya interaction (DMI); (III) investigation of stability en hancement by adopting practical procedures for industry; and (IV) study of the effect of a hexagonal boron nitride (h­BN) monolayer as an insulator on the magnetism of the VXY monolayer. This study provides a clear perspective for the next generation of memory de vices, such as SOT­MRAMs based on transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers.