<p>  </p> <p>A staggering number of problems in materials chemistry relate to controlling the assembly of matter at <10 nm scales, including those with applications in nanoelectronics, energy harvesting, and biomedical device design. It is difficult to achieve precise chemical patterning at the short length scales required for such applications using traditional top-down fabrication methods (<em>e.g., </em>lithographic techniques). On the other hand, biological systems create high-resolution chemical patterns with remarkable efficiency, by assembling simple molecular building blocks with nm-scale features (<em>e.g.,</em> nucleotides, amino acids, lipids) into structurally complex motifs capable of carrying out the diverse functions required for life. </p> <p>Drawing inspiration from the diverse structures and functions of lipids in biological membranes, this work uses lipids to create high-resolution chemical patterns at interfaces, control the growth and self-assembly of nanocrystals, and to facilitate interactions that precisely template nanocrystals at chemically patterned surfaces.</p> <p>Functional alkanes assemble into striped phase monolayers on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG), in which the alkyl chains are oriented parallel to the substrate, expressing both the polar and nonpolar regions of the amphiphile at the environmental interface. The same is true for diyne phosphoethanolamine (dPE), a phospholipid with a zwitterionic headgroup. When assembled into striped phases on HOPG, the headgroup zwitterions of dPE are confined in 1-nm-wide rows of functional groups with a pitch of ~7 nm, resulting in ordered arrays of orientable dipoles at the HOPG surface. The chemistry of dimensionally confined functional groups is distinct from bulk solution phase chemistry, and in this case enables powerful directing effects which can be used to template the adsorption of ultranarrow gold nanowires (AuNWs) in precise alignment with the template stripes. </p> <p>Technical grade oleylamine (<em>cis</em>-9-octadecen-1-amine, OLAm, 70% purity) serves as the capping ligand for the AuNWs used in this work, and additionally plays an important role in the assembly of AuNWs at dPE/HOPG surfaces. While technical-grade reagents enable cost-effective and scalable production of materials, variation in the composition of impurities between different batches have significant impacts on nanocrystal morphology and assembly. We show that thermal transitions of alkyl chain impurities (<em>trans</em> and saturated chains) in AuNW ligand shells can be used to regulate AuNW assembly at chemically patterned interfaces. </p> <p>Characterization of OLAm reagents by 1H NMR and mass spectrometry reveals significant and highly variable fractions elaidylamine (ELAm, <em>trans</em>-9-octadecen-1-amine) and octadecylamine (ODAm) between different batches of OLAm. To understand the phase behavior of mixtures of the C18 alkylamines commonly found in technical grade OLAm, we synthesize isomerically pure OLAm and its <em>trans</em> isomer, elaidylamine (ELAm), to generate binary and ternary mixtures with (ODAm), which is commercially available in high purity. Differential scanning calorimetry reveals limited miscibility of the C18 chains, and demonstrates the significant impact of chain composition on the physical properties of mixtures of alkyl chains (<em>e.g.,</em> tech. grade OLAm). Finally, we examine the impacts of <em>trans</em> and saturated alkyl chains on AuNW synthesis. We find that inclusion of ODAm and ELAm in the ligand blend used for AuNW synthesis each result in shorter AuNWs than those synthesized with pure OLAm. We also observe enhanced stability of surface adsorbed AuNWs conferred by <em>trans </em>and saturated chains. </p>

In this thesis, low temperature specific heat measurements on small (μg) single crystals of different superconducting and magnetic systems are presented. The device used in this work features a combination of high sensitivity and good accuracy over the temperature range 1-400 K and allows measurements in high magnetic fields. It consists of a stack of thin films deposited in the center of a Si3N4 membrane. A batch process for the production of up to 48 calorimeters from a 2" silicon wafer was developed in order to overcome the scarcity of devices and allow systematic investigations. With abundance of calorimeters, single crystals of three different systems were studied. Fe2P is the parent compound of a broad family of magnetocaloric materials. The first-order para- to ferromagnetic phase transition at TC = 216 K was investigated for fields H up to 2 T, applied parallel and perpendicular to the easy axis of magnetization c. Strikingly different phase contours were obtained depending on the field direction. In particular, for H perpendicular to c, two different ferromagnetic phases, with magnetization parallel and perpendicular to c are found. It was also possible to observe the superheating/supercooling states, the latent heat, and the structural change associated to the first-order transition. BaFe2(As1-xPx)2 is a member of the recently discovered iron-based high-temperature superconductors family. Crystals with three different compositions were measured to study the doping dependence of the superconducting properties in the overdoped regime (x &gt; 0.30). The electronic specific heat at low temperatures was analyzed with a two band α model, which allows to extract the gap amplitudes and their weights. The degree of gap anisotropy was investigated from in-field measurements. Additional information on the system was obtained by a combined analysis of the condensation energy and upper critical field. URu2Si2, a heavy fermion material, was studied around and above the hidden-order temperature THO = 17.5 K. The origin of the hidden-order phase is still not understood. High-resolution specific heat data were collected to help clarify if any pseudogap state is seen to exist above THO. We found no evidence for any bulk phase transition above THO.

This work proposes a three-state microscopic opinion formation model based on the stochastic dynamics of the three-state majority-vote model. In order to mimic the heterogeneous compositions of societies, the agent-based model considers two different types of individuals: noise agents and contrarians. We propose an extension of the model for the simulation of the dynamics of financial markets. Agents are represented as nodes in a network of interactions and they can assume any of three distinct possible states (e.g. buy, sell or remain inactive, in a financial context). The time evolution of the state of an agent is dictated by probabilistic dynamics that include both local and global influences. A noise agent is subject to local interactions, tending to assume the majority state of its nearest neighbors with probability 1-q (dissenting from it with a probability given by the noise parameter q). A contrarian is subject to a global interaction with the society as a whole, tending to assume the state of the global minority of said society with probability 1 -q (dissenting from it with probability q). The stochastic dynamics are simulated on complex networks of different topologies, including square lattices, Barabási-Albert networks, Erdös-Rényi random graphs and small-world networks built according to a link rewiring scheme. We perform Monte Carlo simulations to study the second-order phase transition of the system on small-world networks. We perform finite-size scaling analysis and calculate the phase diagram of the system, as well as the standard critical exponents for different values of the rewiring probability. We conclude that the rewiring of the lattice drives the system to different universality classes than that of the three-state majority-vote model on a two dimensional square lattice. The model’s extension for financial markets exhibits the typical qualitative and quantitative features of real financial time series, including heavy-tailed return distributions, volatility clustering and long-term memory for the absolute values of the returns. The histograms of returns are fitted by means of coupled exponential distributions, quantitatively revealing transitions between leptokurtic, mesokurtic and platykurtic regimes in terms of a nonlinear statistical coupling and a shape parameter which describe the complexity of the system.

Les études et les résultats présentés dans ce manuscrit ont pour but de développer une meilleure compréhension des principes à la base de l'auto-organisation dans les systèmes biologiques. La théorie topologique des transitions de phase est l'un des approches possibles pour fournir une généralisation de la description des transitions de phase dans les systèmes petits ou mésoscopiques. Cette théorie a été rigoureusement enracinée dans deux théorèmes: un contre exemple à l'un de ces théorèmes a été récemment découvert. La première partie de ce manuscrit est donc consacré à mieux comprendre ce «contre-exemple » pour verifier si et comment la théorie peut être sauvé.Dans la deuxieme parte de ce manuscrit les résultats des recherches théoriques, numériques et expérimentales sur la condensation à la Fr "ohlich sont reportés. Ceci est une condition préalable à l'activation des oscillations dipolaires géantes qui entraînent des interactions électrodynamiques à long portée entre les molécules coresonnantes. Dans cette thèse, on montre que les interactions à longue portée affectent sensiblement les propriétés de diffusion des molécules en solution. Une empreinte des interactions à long portée pourrait être un phénomène de «transition» en ce qui concerne le coefficient de diffusion en fonction d'un paramètre de contrôle proportionnel à l’intensité d'interaction. Simulations analogues ont été réalisées afin de valider une approche expérimentale visant à trouver une telle «empreinte» dans les systèmes avec interactions à longue portée. / The studies and results reported in this manuscript are aimed to develop a deeper understanding of the principles at the basis of self-organization in biological system.The Topological Theory of phase transitions is one of the possible approaches to provide a generalization of description of phase transitions in small or mesoscopic systems. This theory has been rigorously rooted in two theorems: a counterexample to one of these theorems has been recently found. The first part of this manuscript is devoted to investigation of the "counterexample" to understand if and how the theory can be saved. In the second part of this manuscript the results of theoretical, numerical and experimental investigations on Fr"ohlich-like condensation for normal modes of biomolecules are reported. This is a prerequisite for the activation of giant dipole oscillations in biomolecules which entail long-range electrodynamic interactions between coresonant molecules. In this thesis is shown that long-range interactions markedly affect the self-diffusion properties of molecules in solution. A fingerprint of long-range interactions could be a "transitional" phenomenon concerning the self-diffusion coefficient as a function of a control parameter proportional to interaction strength. Analogous simulations have been performed to validate an experimental approach aimed at finding such "fingerprint" in systems with built-in long-range interactions.

Cílem této práce bylo užití termické analýzy, především teplotně modulované diferenční kompenzační kalorimetrie (TMDSC) k odhalení změn ve struktuře huminových kyselin (HA), způsobených pravidelným vlhčením HA vodou a jejím opakovaným sušením. Celkový počet cyklů vlhčení byl pět, neboť následující cykly již nezpůsobily žádné další pozorovatelné strukturální změny. Experimenty provedené v této práci ukázaly, že voda hraje roli nejen v bobtnání struktury HA a přerušení van der Waalsových sil, ale i v přerušení některých vodíkových vazeb, což má větší vliv na snížení teploty skelného přechodu, Tg. Změny v teplotách skelného přechodu byly nepatrné, protože voda ovlivnila především okolí amorfních domén (zodpovědných za skelný přechod), než domény samotné. Dalším úkolem bylo ozřejmit roli volných lipidů ve stabilitě fyzikální struktury HA s ohledem na opakované vlhčení a sušení. Voda periodicky stabilizovala a destabilizovala strukturu HA, ve vzorku HA bez volných lipidů byl vliv vody krátkodobý, voda potřebovala méně času k vyvolání změn ve vzorku, zatímco v původním vzorku byly změny kontinuální. Opakované vlhčení vyvolalo pokles v teplotách fázových přeměn v každém cyklu v porovnání s předcházejícím a ovlivnilo především kinetické procesy, jmenovitě krystalizaci/krystalickou reorganizaci. Opakované vlhčení dále způsobovalo redistribuci a vymytí hydrofilních molekul a tím postupnou hydrofobizaci celé struktury.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第20895号 / 理博第4347号 / 新制||理||1624(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科物理学・宇宙物理学専攻 / (主査)教授 佐々 真一, 教授 川上 則雄, 教授 早川 尚男 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

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This thesis, comprising three publications, explores the efficacy of novel generalization of the fidelity susceptibility and their numerical application to the study of frustrated quantum phase transitions in two and one dimensions. Specifically, they will be used in exact diagonalization studies of the various limiting cases of the anisotropic next-nearest neighbour triangular lattice Heisenberg model (ANNTLHM). These generalized susceptibilities are related to the order parameter susceptibilities and spin stiffness and are believed to exhibit similar behaviour although with greater sensitivity. This makes them ideal for numerical studies on small systems. Additionally, the utility of the excited-state fidelity and twist boundary conditions will be explored. All studies are done through numerical exact diagonalization. In the limit of interchain couplings going to zero the ANNTLHM reduces to the well studied $J_1-J_2$ chain with a known, difficult to identify, BKT-type transition. In the first publication of this work the generalized fidelity susceptibilities introduced therein are shown to be able to identify this transition as well as characterize the already understood phases it straddles. The second publication of this work then seeks to apply these generalized fidelity susceptibilities, as well as the excited-state fidelity, to the study of the general phase diagram of the ANNTLHM. It is shown that the regular and excited-state fidelities are useful quantities for the mapping of novel phase diagrams and that the generalized fidelity susceptibilities can provide valuable information as to the nature of the phases within the mapped phase regions. The final paper sees the application of twisted boundary conditions to the anisotropic triangular model (next-nearest neighbour interactions are zero). It is demonstrated that these boundary conditions greatly enhance the ability to numerically explore incommensurate physics in small systems. / Thesis / Doctor of Science (PhD)

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Методом точек помутнения изучены фазовые переходы систем ПС – метилацетат, ПВА – этанол, ПДМС – бутанон и ПММА – бутанол в магнитном поле и в его отсутствие. Построены фазовые диаграммы систем ПС (Mh = 2,0´105) – метилацетат, ПВА (Mη = 5,8´104) – этанол, ПДМС (Mη = 1,0x103) – бутанон и ПММА (Mh = 5,5´104) – бутанол. Установлено, что магнитное поле не влияет на температуру фазовых переходов растворов гибкоцепных аморфных полимеров. / Phase transitions of the PS – methyl acetate, PVAc – ethanol, PDMS – butanone, PMMA – butanol systems have been studied using the cloud-point method. Phase diagrams of these systems are constructed. It is shown that the magnetic field does not influence on the phase transition temperature of flexible chain amorphous polymer solutions.