Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Num regime balísstico e a baixas temperaturas, a fórmula de Landauer dá uma boa descrição do transporte de calor para nano-junções conectadas a dois fios acoplados a banhos térmicos a temperaturas diferentes. Partindo de um modelo microscópico e utilizando o método de funções de Green fora do equilíbrio, é possível obter uma expressão para a condutância térmica na nano-junção equivalente a fórmula de Landauer. Esta depende dos valores das constantes de acoplamento entre os modos de fônons da região central e dos fios, além do gradiente térmico. A expressão para a condutância térmica é muito semelhante aquela obtida para a condutância elétrica. Neste trabalho nós apresentamos o método para o cálculo de grandezas relacionadas ao transporte térmico em um regime onde não há um gradiente de temperatura entre os reservatórios mas o sistema sofre uma perturbação dependente do tempo. Ou seja, com uma escolha conveniente da parametrização temporal dos termos de acoplamento entre a nano-junção e os fios é possível produzir uma corrente de calor na ausência de diferença de temperaturas entre os banhos térmicos aos quais os fios estão conectados. Esse fenômeno caracteriza o bombeamento de calor. Desenvolvemos uma teoria de transporte dependente do tempo para descrever o bombeamento. A teoria é geral, dependendo da densidade de fônons, da intensidade e dependência temporal do acoplamento. Aplicamos o formalismo em um modelo simples demonstrando que, em princípio, é possível bombear calor através de uma cadeia linear de átomos sem gradiente térmico. / In the ballistic regime at low temperatures, the Landauer formula gives a good description of heat transport for nano-junctions, connected to two leads attached to thermal baths at different temperatures. Starting from a microscopic model and using the nonequilibrium Green functions, it is possible to obtain an expression for the thermal conductance in nano-junction equivalent to the Landauer formula. The latest depends on the values of the coupling constants between phonon modes of the central region and leads, as well as on the thermal gradient. The expression for the thermal conductance is quite similar to that obtained for electrical conductance. In this work we present the method to calculate quantities related to heat transport in a regime where there is no temperature gradient between the reservoirs, but the system suffers a time depending perturbation. That is, with a convenient choice of time parameterization of the coupling terms between the nano-junction and the leads it is possible to produce a heat flow in the absence of a temperature difference between the thermal baths connected to the leads. This phenomenon characterizes the heat pumping. We develop a time-dependent transport theory to describe the pumping. The theory is general, depending on the phonons density, intensity and time dependence of the coupling. We apply the formalism in a simple model showing that in principle it is possible to pump heat through a linear chain of atoms without thermal gradient.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-18T18:19:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao de Antonio Luiz Martins Junior.pdf: 2188938 bytes, checksum: 2158404e55575579b79bcf24267df24b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-10-30 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In recent years, researchers and scientists has been devoted more to the study of inorganic materials, in particular the oxides known as perovskites, because its technological use. The analysis of their properties have been made by various techniques, among these we can mention the Raman spectroscopy and infrared, which show very sensitive to changes in the structure of these oxides. Thus, this work presents the study of phonons at room temperature the double perovskites Ca₃Mn₂WO₉ (CMWO) and Ca₃Mn₂NbO₉ (CMNO) by means of Raman scattering techniques and transmittance Infrared. Both compounds crystallize in a monoclinic system space group P2₁/n, with Z = 2. The Raman and infrared spectra are interpreted by the group factor analysis in terms of the space group P2₁/n. Also the vibrational modes of stretching and folding B were reported "- O. The observed spectra are very similar to the cubic perovskite structure prototype dual Fm3m indicating that the phases of the study result of minor distortions cubic cell. It is also observed an unexpected band in the Raman spectra of both materials. We suggest that this additional bandwidth would result from occupational disorder of the sites of the cation B, which is evidenced in both phases. / Nos últimos anos, pesquisadores e cientistas tem se dedicado mais ao estudo de materiais inorgânicos, em particular aos óxidos denominados perovskitas, devido o seu aproveitamento tecnológico. A análise de suas propriedades tem sido feita por diversas técnicas, entre estas podemos citar as espectroscopias Raman e de Infravermelho, que se mostram muito sensíveis às mudanças na estrutura desses óxidos. Sendo assim, este trabalho apresenta o estudo de fônons à temperatura ambiente das perovskitas duplas Ca₃Mn₂WO₉ (CMWO) e Ca₃Mn₂NbO₉ (CMNO), por meio das técnicas de espalhamento Raman e transmitância de Infravermelho. Ambos os compostos cristalizam em um sistema monoclínico com grupo espacial P2₁/n, com Z = 2. Os espectros Raman e infravermelho são interpretados por meio da análise do grupo fator em termos do grupo espacial P2₁/n. Também foram reportados os modos vibracionais de estiramento e dobramento do B - O. Os espectros observados são muito semelhantes ao do protótipo cúbico de estrutura perovskitas dupla Fm m indicando que as fases em estudo resultam de pequenas distorções da célula cúbica. Observa-se também uma banda inesperada nos espectros Raman de ambos materiais. Nós sugerimos que essa banda adicional seria resultado da desordem ocupacional dos sítios do cátion B, que é evidenciada nas duas fases.

Os nitretos do grupo III (BN, AIN,Gan e InN) e suas ligas ternárias Al-GaN e InGaN proporcionam, recentemente, um extraordinário avanço na fabricação de dispositivos opto-eletrônicos operando na região do espectro correspondente ao verde-azul-UV e na produção de dispositivos eletrônicos de alta frequência, alta temperatura e alta potência. Estes materiais semicondutores de gap largo atraíram enorme atenção dos pesquisadores nos últimos anos. O objetivo desta tese é o estudo das propriedades vibracionais dos nitretos do grupo III referente tanto ao cristal perfeito, quanto ao cristal com defeito. Utilizamos como base a Teoria Clássica do Crital Harmônico e o Método das Funções de Green. Com a Teoria Clássica do Cristal Harmônico, juntamente com o Método do Valence Force Filed e o Método da Soma de Ewald, que permitem gerar a matriz dinâmica do sistema, determinamos o comportamento vibracional dos nitretos binários e das ligas ternárias. A utilização destes métodos permitiu a obtenção do espectro de fônons dos nitretos binários, e o estudo do comportamento dos modos ópticos em para as ligas ternárias. A partir da Função de Green do cristal perfeito e da Função de Green do cristal com defeito, obtivemos as frequências e os modos vibracionais localizados e ressonantes introduzidos pela impureza de C e As em GaN. A partir das densidades de estados do cristal perfeito e do cristal com defeito, calculamos a entropia de formação da vacância de N em GaN. Os resultados obtidos foram usados na interpretação de dados experimentais disponíveis na literatura, relativos às propriedades vibracionais dos nitretos na estrutura wurtzita, e na predição e análise de dados experimentais obtidos pelo grupo do Laboratório de Novos Materiais Semicondutores do Instituto de Física da USP para os nitretos zincblende. / The group-III nitrides (BN, AIN, GaN and InN) and their ternary alloys AlGaN and InGaN generated recently an extraordirlary progress in the production of optoelectronic devices operating in the green-blue-UV region of the spectrum, and in the production of electronic devices of high frequency, high temperature and high power. These wide gap semiconductor materials attracted enormous attention in the last years. The objective of this Thesis was to study the vibrational properties of the bulk III nitrides, without and with defects. To accomplish this study we used the Classic Theory of the Harmonic Crystal and the Method of the Green\'s Functions. With the Classic Theory of the Harmonic Crystal, together with the Valence Force Field Method and the Method of the Ewald\'s Sum, that allow to generate the dynamic matrix of the system, we determined the vibrational behavior of the binary nitrides and of the ternary alloys. The use of these methods allowed us to obtain the phonon spectra of the binary nitrides and to study the behavior of the optical modes at of the ternary alloys. Starting from the Green\'s Function of the perfect crystal and the Green\'s Function of the crystal with defect, we obtained the frequencies and the localized and resonant vibrational modes introduced by the C and As impurities in GaN. Starting from the densities of states of the perfect crystal and of the crystal with defect, we calculated the formation entropy of the N vacancy in GaN. The obtained results were used in the interpretation of experimental data related to the vibrational properties of the wurtzite nitrides available in the literature, and in the prediction and analysis of experimental results obtained for zincblende nitrides by the group of the New Semiconductors Materials Laboratory of t11c Physics Institute at USP.

Värmelära upplevs ofta som ett abstrakt område i gymnasiefysiken och elever tenderar att tolka känseln som en termometer. Värmelära kan därmed bli en tuff utmaning för många elever. Genom att introducera värmekameror i undervisningen ges elever möjligheten att se annars osynliga värmefenomen. Eftersom värmekameran inte ännu blivit etablerad i undervisningen finns det ett intresse att studera elevernas interaktion med värmekameran. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur interaktionen ser ut och hur värmekameran kan hjälpa elever i begreppsbildandet av värmerelaterade fenomen. Denna studie har gjorts på ca 140 elever som går sitt första år på det naturvetenskapliga programmet på en gymnasieskola i Mellansverige. Eleverna fick utföra en laboration designad enligt prediction-observation-explanation-metoden. Laborationen innehöll tre stationer där de centrala begreppen var värmeledning, stöt och friktion. Eleverna använde en värmekamera som hjälpmedel för att förklara de olika fenomenen. Elevernas interaktioner vid laborationen dokumenterades med video- och ljudupptagning i syfte att ge grund för en kvalitativ analys. Analysen av materialet kom att handla om tre delar: hur eleverna resonerar kring värmeledning, respektive friktion och stöt, och hur värmekameran kan stimulera det kreativa tänkandet hos eleverna. Det visade sig att många elevgrupper kom långt i det makroskopiska och en bra bit i det mikroskopiska resonemanget kring värmeledning genom att tillämpa en modell av fria elektroner i metall de hade lärt sig från kemin. De flesta grupperna hade svårt att resonera kring energiomvandlingar vid stöt både på en makroskopisk och mikroskopisk nivå. Det kreativa undersökandet resulterade i en röra. Värmekameran lockar elevernas nyfikenhet, ger ”disciplinary affordance” och stimulerar dem till ”instant inquiry”. När eleverna gick utanför instruktionerna och bedrev egna undersökningar resulterade det i en röra då de prioriterade bort sina nykonstruerade hypoteser. / Thermodynamics is often perceived as an abstract field in secondary school physics. Thermodynamics can thus be a tough challenge for many students. By including thermal imaging cameras in teaching, students are given the opportunity to see otherwise invisible thermal phenomena. Since the infrared camera has not yet been established in teaching, there is an interest in studying the interaction between students and the thermal imaging camera. The purpose of this study is to investigate the interaction between student and the infrared camera and to see how the infrared camera can help students in the conceptual formation of heat-related phenomena. The study included about 140 students attending their first year on the science program at an upper secondary school in central Sweden. The students had to perform laboratory experiments designed according to the prediction-observation-explanation method. The laboratory experiments consisted of three stations where the key concepts were heat conduction, collision and friction. Students took help of an infrared camera to explain the various phenomena. The students' interactions at the lab were documented with video and audio recording in order to set the basis of a qualitative analysis. The analysis of the material consisted of three parts: how students reason concerning heat conduction, their reasoning concerning dissipative processes as friction and collision, and how the infrared camera can stimulate the students' creative thinking. Many student groups were successful in the macroscopic and quite successful in the microscopic reasoning regarding heat conduction by applying a model of free electrons in the metal which they had learned in chemistry class. Other studies have shown that students find it hard explaining heat conduction and that they tend to interpret the physical touch as a thermometer. The group that examined friction and collision found it difficult explaining the transformation from kinetic energy into thermal energy in collision at both the macroscopic and microscopic level. The creative investigation resulted in a mess. The infrared camera attracts students' curiosity, gives ”disciplinary affordance” and stimulates them to ”instant inquiry”. When the students went beyond their instructions and conducted own investigations it resulted in a mess when they prioritized away the recently created hypotheses.

The Casimir interaction is the fundamental physical phenomenon which emerges due to modification of vacuum fluctuations by boundaries in a confined area of space. It arises in many fields of physics, including condensed matter. Recently, substantial interest in the Casimir effect has revived as a result of the significant progress in the experimental techniques in cold atoms. In this thesis, we develop the description of the phonon-mediated Casimir interaction taking into account multiple phonon-impurity scatterings, that strongly renormalize the resulting interaction between the impurities. Our results, formulated in terms of the T-matrix formalism, generalize previous studies of the Casimir interaction between different kind of impurities and allow estimation of the expected phonon-induced Casimir interaction in various systems. Further, we consider a propagation of a singe hole in a two-dimensional ferromagnet accompanied by spin-flip processes. We show that an external magnetic field can be used to manipulate the properties of the single-layer system. For easy plain ferromagnets, at saturation value of the external field perpendicular to the easy axis, the Green’s function demonstrates the branch cut behavior. It is contrasted to the systems of an itinerant quasiparticle in the antiferromagnetic background where the quasiparticle retains the finite quasiparticle weight. The considered magnon scattering processes on a single itinerant electron (hole) in a two-dimensional ferromagnet can be used further for the magnon-mediated Casimir interaction in quasi-two-dimensional ferromagnets.

<div>The recent decades have witnessed increased efforts to push the efficiency of energy systems beyond existing limits in order to keep pace with the rising global energy demands. Such efforts involve finding bulk materials and nanostructures with desired thermal properties such as thermal conductivity (k). For example, identifying high k materials is crucial in thermal management of vertically integrated circuits (ICs) and flexible nanoelectronics, which will power the next generation personal computing devices. On the opposite end of the spectrum, designing ultra-low k materials is essential for improving thermal barrier coatings in turbines and creating high performance thermoelectric (TE) devices for waste heat harvesting. In this dissertation, we identify nanostructures with such extreme thermal transport properties and explore the underlying phonon and photon transport mechanisms. Our approach follows two main avenues for evaluating potential candidates: (a) high fidelity atomistic simulations and (b) rapid machine learning-based property prediction and design optimization. The insight gained into the governing physics enables us to theoretically predict new materials for specific applications requiring high or low k, propose accelerated design optimization pathways which can significantly reduce design time, and advance the general understanding of energy transport in semiconductors and dielectric materials.</div><div><br></div><div>Bi2Te3, Sb2Te3 and nanostructures have long been the best TE materials due to their low κ at room temperatures. Despite this, computational studies such as molecular dynamics (MD) simulations on these important systems have been few, due to the lack of a suitable interatomic potential for Sb2Te3. We first develop interatomic potential parameters to predict thermal transport properties of bulk Sb2Te3. The parameters are fitted to a potential energy surface comprised of density functional theory (DFT) calculated lattice energies, and validated by comparing against experimental and DFT calculated lattice constants and phonon properties. We use the developed parameters in equilibrium MD simulations to calculate the thermal conductivity of bulk Sb2Te3 at different temperatures. A spectral analysis of the phonon transport is also performed, which reveals that 80% of the total cross-plane k is contributed by phonons with mean free paths (MFPs) between 3-100 nm. </div><div><br></div><div>We then use MD simulations to calculate phonon transport properties such as thermal conductance across Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 interface, which may account for the major part of the total thermal resistance in nanostructures. By comparing our MD results to an elastic scattering model, we find that inelastic phonon-phonon scattering processes at higher temperatures increases interfacial conductance by providing additional channels for energy transport. Finally, we calculate the thermal conductivities of Bi2Te3/Sb2Te3 superlattices (SLs) of varying period. The results show the characteristic minimum thermal conductivity, which is attributed to the competition between incoherent and coherent phonon transport regimes. Our MD simulations are the first fully predictive studies on this important TE system and pave the way for further exploration of nanostructures such as SLs with interface diffusion and random multilayers (RMLs).</div><div><br></div><div>The MD simulations described in the previous section provide high-fidelity data at a high computational cost. As such, manual intuition-based search methods using these simulations are not feasible for searching for low-probability-of-occurrence systems with extreme thermal conductivity. In view of this, we use machine learning (ML) techniques to accelerate and efficiently perform nanostructure design optimization within such large design spaces. First, we use a Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimization method to efficiently search the design space of fixed length Si/Ge random multilayers (RMLs) for the structure with lowest k, which is found to be lower than the SL k by 33%. By comparing thermal conductivity and interface resistances between optimal and sub-optimal structures, we identify non-intuitive trends in design parameters such as average period and degree of randomness of layer thicknesses. </div><div><br></div><div>While machine learning (ML) has shown increasing effectiveness in optimizing materials properties under known physics, its application in discovering new physics remains challenging due to its interpolative nature. We demonstrate a general-purpose adaptive ML-accelerated search process that can discover unexpected lattice thermal conductivity (k) enhancement in aperiodic superlattices (SLs) as compared to periodic superlattices, with implications for thermal management of multilayer-based electronic devices. We use molecular dynamics simulations for high-fidelity calculations of k, along with a convolutional neural network (CNN) which can rapidly predict k for a large number of structures. To ensure accurate prediction for the target unknown SLs, we iteratively identify aperiodic SLs with structural features leading to locally enhanced thermal transport and include them as additional training data for the CNN. The identified structures exhibit increased coherent phonon transport owing to the presence of closely spaced interfaces.</div><div><br></div><div>We also demonstrate the application of ML in optimization of photonic multilayered structures with enhanced reflectivity to radiation heat flux, which is required for applications such as high temperature thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). We first perform a systematic variation of design parameters such as total thickness and average layer thickness of CeO2-MgO multilayers, and quantify their influence on the spectral and total reflectivity. The effect of randomization of layer thicknesses is also studied, which is found to increase the reflectivity due to localization of photons in certain spatial regions of the multilayer structure. Next, we employ a GA search method which can efficiently identify RML structures with reflectivity enhancements of ~22%, 20%, 20% and 10% over that obtained in randomly generated RML structures for total thicknesses of 5,10,20 and 30 microns respectively. We also calculate the spectral reflectivity and the field intensity distribution within the optimal and sub-optimal RML structures. We find that the electric field intensity can be significantly enhanced within certain spatial regions within the GA-optimized RMLs in comparison to non-optimized and periodic structures, which implies the high degree of randomness-induced photon localization leading to enhanced reflectivity in the GA-optimized structures.</div><div><br></div><div>In summary, our work advances the design or search for materials and nanostructures with targeted thermal transport properties such as low and high thermal conductivity and high reflectivity. The new insights provided into the underlying physics will guide the design of promising nanostructures for high efficiency energy systems. </div><div><br></div>

Ce manuscrit porte sur l’étude de cuprates de basse dimensionnalité, les systèmes à chaînes de spins SrCuO₂ et Sr₂CuO₃. Un des intérêts de ces deux composés est qu’ils présentent des conductions thermiques fortement anisotropes. Celles-ci comportent une contribution magnétique due au transport de la chaleur via les excitations de spinons qui se manifeste uniquement dans la direction des chaînes de spins. Notre étude a pour objectif la mise en évidence des mécanismes qui gouvernent ces propriétés de transport, notamment à travers l’étude des interactions entre les spinons, les phonons et les défauts. Les interactions spinons (phonons)-défauts ont été sondées par l’introduction intentionnelle de dopants (1-2%) non-magnétiques sur le site du cuivre : Mg²⁺, Zn²⁺, Pd²⁺ ou Ni²⁺, ou encore par l’introduction d’éléments possédant des degrés d’oxydation différents sur le site du strontium : La³⁺ ou K⁺. Les composés ont été synthétisés sous leur forme monocristalline par la méthode de fusion de la zone solvante. Des caractérisations structurales, magnétiques et thermiques des composés purs et dopés ont été réalisées. Les spectres d’excitations magnétiques de ces cuprates ont été déterminés par diffusion inélastique de neutrons, spectroscopie RMN et spectroscopie de photoémission résolue en angle afin de révéler l’impact de la substitution. L’étude des spectres de phonons a également été réalisée par diffusion inélastique de neutrons. Les résultats de ces mesures sont corrélés aux propriétés de conduction thermique des composés purs et dopés.. / This manuscript deals with the study of low dimensional cuprates, namely, the spin chains systems SrCuO₂ and Sr₂CuO₃. These two compounds exhibit highly anisotropic thermal conduction properties along the spin-chains direction, where magnetic thermal conduction contributes to the heat transport process via spinon excitations. Our study aims to highlight the mechanisms that govern the heat transport properties, particularly through the study of the scattering channels involving spinon, phonon and defects. The spinon (phonon)–defect scattering was probed by the intentional introduction of nonmagnetic dopants (1-2%) on the copper site, by: Mg²⁺, Zn²⁺, Pd²⁺ or Ni²⁺, or by the introduction of elements carrying different oxidation level on the strontium site, by: La³⁺ or K⁺. Single crystals of the pure and doped materials have been grown by the travelling solvent floating zone method. The structural, magnetic and thermal characterizations of the pure and doped compounds were performed. The magnetic excitation spectra of the compounds were determined by inelastic neutron scattering, NMR spectroscopy, and angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy to reveal the impact of the substitution on the spin dynamics of the doped compounds. The study of phonon spectra has also been performed by inelastic neutron scattering. Results from inelastic neutron scattering have been correlated to the heat transport properties of the pristine and substituted materials.

The rapid progress on developing new and improved multifunctional materials, for optoelectronic and spin based phenomena/devices, have increased the importance of the fundamental understanding of their coherent states and nonlinear optical properties. This study is aimed at characterizing, modeling, and controlling the fundamental electronic, phononic, and spin properties of several classes of materials through nonequilibrium and nonlinear light-matter interactions, coupled with a novel design of the material phases, interfaces, and heterostructures. This research directly addresses the Grand Challenges identified in the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee report "Directing Matter and Energy: Five Challenges for Science and the Imagination" (Hemminger, 2007) [1], in particular, the area: "Matter far beyond equilibrium" and addresses the questions, "How do remarkable properties of matter emerge from complex correlations of the atomic or electronic constituents and how can we control these properties?" and "How do we design and perfect atom- and energy-efficient synthesis of revolutionary new forms of matter with tailored properties?". The knowledge gained from these fundamental studies can provide new information for a broad community to provide concepts for the next generation of multifunctional materials and devices, and resulted in several publications and conference presentations. The materials studied in this dissertation included multiferroic BaTiO3-BiFeO3 [2], ferroelectric Pb0.52Zr0.48TiO3 (PZT), InAs/AlAsSb multi-quantum-well [3], lead halide perovskite [4], n-type InAsP films [5, 6], and nanolaminate plasmonic crystals [7]. Probing multiferroics, which are materials that can exhibit ferromagnetic, ferroelectric, and ferroelastic orders simultaneously in a single phase, was a main focus of this study. BiFeO3 (BFO) is the most widely investigated multiferroic due to its high Neel and Curie temperatures and has antiferromagnetic and ferroelectric properties [8]. An inherent drawback of BFO is its large leakage currents. In this project, (1 − x)BaTiO3-(x)BiFeO3, x = 0.725 (BTO-BFO) heterostructures were investigated [9], where the conductivity of the solid solution can be reduced by adding another perovskite material, BaTiO3 [2]. We aimed to study optically induced coherent states in our BTO-BFO structures. Time resolved pumpprobe spectroscopic measurements were performed at room temperature as well as at low temperature (100 K) up to 10 T. Coherent acoustic phonons were observed both in a film and nanorods, resulting in coherent phonon frequencies of 27 and 33 GHz, respectively [2]. Coherent phonon spectroscopy is a sensitive tool to characterize the interfaces and can be employed as an effective ultrasensitive quantum sensor [10]. Furthermore, in the nanorods arrays of BTO-BFO, an additional oscillation with frequency in the range of 8.1 GHz was observed. This frequency is close to a theoretically predicted magnon frequency which could indicate the coexistence of coherent phonons and magnons in the nanorods arrays [2]. In an analogy to photonics which relies on electromagnetic waves, magnonics utilizes spin waves to carry and process information, offering several advantages such as an operation frequency in the THz range. Recently, "a quantum tango" [11] was reported where coupled coherent magnon and phonons modes were formed on a surface patterned ferromagnet. Furthermore, BTO-BFO heterostructures were probed using transient birefringence and magneto-optical Kerr effect spectroscopy. The results demonstrated that the magnetic field dependence of coherent phonons, measured by these two techniques, exhibits more sensitivity to the external magnetic fields compared to the differential reflectivity technique [2]. Moreover, nonlinear optical properties of this structure were investigated via second harmonic generation spectroscopy, where wavelength and polarization dependence of this nonlinear observation will be discussed in this dissertation. As part of this study, another class of multiferroic materials, with strong ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties, Pb0.52Zr0.48TiO3 (PZT) was studied [12]. In this project, the nonlinear optical properties of PZT nanorod arrays were investigated. Clear signatures of second harmonic generations from 490-525 nm (2.38-2.53 eV) at room temperature, were observed. Furthermore, time resolved differential reflectivity measurements were performed to study dynamical properties in the range of 690-1000 nm where multiphoton processes were responsible for the photoexcitations. We compared this excitation scheme, which is sensitive mainly to the surface states, to when the photoexcited energy (∼ 3.1 eV) was close to the bandgap of the nanorods. Our results offer promises for employing these nanostructures in nonlinear photonic applications. Furthermore, the established techniques during my research provided new insights on optical properties of InAs/AlAsSb multi-quantum-well [3], lead halide perovskite [4], n-type InAsP films [5, 6], and nanolaminate plasmonic crystals [7], and the results will be briefly presented in this dissertation. / Doctor of Philosophy / My research activities have explored multifunctional materials and heterostructures with strongly enhanced coupled electric and magnetic orders and optical properties. In particular, pursuing novel heterostructure designs such as multiferroics can provide control over electric and magnetic ordering in mixed dimensionality. This, together with control at the level from lattice structure to electron spin states can give rise to improved or even qualitatively new and robust materials properties. For example, a better understanding of the phenomena associated with the spin degree of freedom of electrons allows for advancement in spintronic device applications such as storage, logic, and sensors, which are associated with quantum computers and quantum communications [13, 14, 15]. Overarching questions and goals of my activities included: What are the microscopic origins and mechanisms of nonlinear response in strongly coupled nanostructured materials and its relationship to electronic, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom? (2) What are the effects of dimensionality and quantum confinement on optical properties? (3) How do we control and manipulate the coherent states, such as coherent phonons and magnons using external and internal fields, material composition, and morphology to achieve maximal efficiency and tunability? Addressing many of the challenges in the fast-paced technological world requires continued developments of new materials with enhanced optical properties. The knowledge gained from my fundamental studies can provide new information for the next generation of multifunctional materials and devices with advanced optical properties and resulted in several publications and conference presentations.

Phonon anharmonicity is critical for describing various phenomena in crystals, including lattice thermal conductivity, thermal expansion, structural phase transitions, and many others. Including anharmonicity in the calculation of condensed matter observables developed rapidly in the past decade. First-principles computation of cubic phonon interactions have been performed in many systems, and the quartic interactions have begun to receive more attention. In this study, reliable Hamiltonians are constructed purely in terms of quadratic, cubic, and quartic irreducible derivatives, which are calculated efficiently and precisely using the lone and bundled irreducible derivative approaches (LID and BID). The resulting Hamiltonians give rise to a nontrivial many-phonon problem which requires some approximation in order to compute observables. We implemented self-consistent diagrammatic approaches to evaluate the phonon self-energy, including the Hartree-Fock approximation for phonons and quasiparticle perturbation theory, where both the 4-phonon loop and the real part of the 3-phonon bubble are employed during self-consistency. Additionally, we implemented molecular dynamics in order to yield the numerically exact solution in the classical limit. The molecular dynamics solution is robust for directly comparing to experimental results at sufficiently high temperatures, and for assessing our diagrammatic approaches in the classical limit. Anharmonic vibrational Hamiltonians were constructed for CaF₂, ThO₂, and UO₂. Diagrammatic approaches were used to evaluate the phonon self-energy, yielding the phonon lineshifts and linewidths and the thermal conductivity within the relaxation time approximation. Our systematic results allowed us to resolve the paradox of why first-principles phonon linewidths strongly disagree with results extracted from inelastic neutron scattering (INS). We demonstrated that the finite region in reciprocal space required in INS data analysis, the 𝑞-voxel, must be explicitly accounted for within the calculation in order to draw a meaningful comparison. We also demonstrated that the 𝑞-voxel is important to properly compare the spectrum measured in inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS), despite the fact that the ?-voxel is much smaller. Accounting for the 𝑞-voxel, we obtained good agreement for the scattering function linewidths up to intermediate temperatures. Additionally, good agreement was obtained for the thermal conductivity. Another topic we addressed is translation symmetry breaking caused by factors such as defects, chemical disorders, and magnetic order. These phenomena will lead to shifts and a broadening of the phonon spectrum, and formally the single-particle Green’s function encodes these effects. However, it is often desirable to obtain an approximate non-interacting spectrum that contains the effective shifts of the phonon frequencies, allowing straightforward comparison with experimentally measured scattering peak locations. Such an effective phonon dispersion can be obtained using a band unfolding technique, and in this study, we formulated unfolding in the context of irreducible derivatives. We showcased the unfolding of phonons in UZr₂, where chemical disorder is present, and compared the results with experimental IXS data. Additionally, we extended the unfolding technique to anharmonic terms and demonstrated this using 3rd and 4th order terms in the antiferromagnetic phase of UO₂.

No description available.