The proton polarization in the 3He(d,p)4He reaction induced by unpolarized deuterons has been measured at deuteron lab. energies of 2.0, 2.8, 3.9 and 6.0MeV for 20 angles between 0° and 150° (c.m.). Statistical uncertainties are typically ± 0.01. The measurements were made with a proton polarimeter in which the left-right asymmetry of scattering at 60° (lab.) in 4He is determined. The polarimeter employs "venetian-blind" collimation of the protons by conical vanes and 75 cm2 plastic scintillator detectors. Four detectors are included for use in polarization transfer experiments. For 10.5 MeV protons and a helium pressure of 250 p.s.i. the target thickness is 3 MeV and the efficiency per detector per unpolarized proton incident is 10-4. For each polarimeter detector a triple coincidence with a 15 ns resolving time was required with two scintillator transmission detectors preceding the polarimeter. Spectra of random coincidences were accumulated simultaneously and subtracted. Asymmetries resulting from polarimeter-target misalignment and other geometrical effects are discussed. All results quoted are geometric means of pairs of measurements for 180° rotation of the polarimeter and are also arithmetic means of such measurements to left and right of the 3He target. The absolute analyzing power is estimated by computer simulation of trajectories to be -0.638 ± 0.020 for protons entering at 10.3 MeV. The product of polarization and cross section is fitted to an expansion of first-order associated Legendre polynomials using these results and earlier measurements. Only four terms are required except at 6.0MeV where a fifth is necessary. The energy dependence of these coefficients suggests resonances in 5Li at deuteron energies of 60MeV (odd coefficients) and 7.5 MeV (even coefficients) in agreement with results for the polarized-beam analyzing powers(1). Comparison of the results with vector-polarized-beam (1) and polarized-target(2) analyzing powers shows no evidence for the postulated simple relations(3) based on DWBA cal calculations. Comparison of the results with recent measurements of the neutron polarization in the mirror reaction(4) shows no significant differences. The theory of angular correlations in charged particle reactions is developed and used to calculate outgoing nucleon polarizations. Expressions are given for polarization transfer coefficients. These coefficients are evaluated in terms of the T-matrix elements for the interference of various channels with the dominant S-wave, JΠ = 3+/2 channel in 3He(d,p)4He at the 0.43 MeV resonance. Two experiments to measure combinations of these elements are discussed. (1) Gruebler, W. et al., 1971, Nucl. Phys. Al76, 631 (2) Leemann, Ch., W. Gruebler et al., 1971, in Polarization Phenomena in Nuclear Reactions (University of Wisconsin Press), p. 548 (3) Tanifuji,M. and K. Yazaki, 1968, Prog. Theor. Phys. 40, 1023 (4) Mutchler, G.S., W.B. Broste and J.E. Simmons, 1971, Phys. Rev. C3, 1031

This thesis investigates the properties of an atomic system exhibiting a giant Kerr nonlinearity. The atomic energy level scheme involves four energy levels. A three level A subsystem in the atom exhibits the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), reducing the spontaneous emission noise. The fourth level leads to an ac-Stark shift of the ground state, which in turn leads to a giant, noiseless Kerr nonlinearity. Two different environments are explored. First, a system comprising of large number of atoms in an optical cavity is analysed. Detailed aspects of noise reduction in this system are investigated. In particular, strong squeezing in the quadrature in phase with the field driving the cavity mode is found, if the effective coupling of light to the atoms is strong. However, the linewidth of the predicted squeezing is found to be very narrow. This is attributed to a very steep linear susceptibility of the atomic medium. Since the widening of the squeezing window is possible only for weaker effective coupling, in turn reducing the squeezing level, a different environment is proposed. This involves a single four level atom, strongly coupled to the cavity mode. In such a strongly coupled system, the most appropriate approach is found to be that formulated in terms of polaritons – composite excitations of the 'atom-cavity molecule'. Adopting the polariton approach, nonclassical correlations in the field leaving the cavity are investigated. Strong photon antibunching is found and the effect of photon blockade predicted and described. The photon blockade effect can also be found in a system comprised of a two level atom coupled to the cavity mode, if the external driving is tuned to one of the vacuum Rabi resonances. A comparison between the two schemes is performed, and it is found that the four level scheme exhibits much better photon blockade. The reason for this is quantum interference between secondary transitions in the dressed states picture. Destructive interference cancels the transitions that would otherwise introduce a second photon into the system, hence producing a more robust photon blockade. All of these results are valid in the regime where external driving is weak. If the external driving strength is increased, the photon statistics (as measured by the zero-delay second order correlation function) changes from strong antibunching to strong bunching, over a relatively narrow range of driving strengths. The occurrence of this change can again be attributed to quantum interference. It is shown that the interference effect prevents the excitation of the composite system by a second photon, but not excitation by a two-photon transition (following the first excitation). Therefore, the third excitation manifold is excited, which then decays back to the first manifold in a two photon cascade. This two photon cascade is the source of correlated photon pairs causing an increase in the second order correlation function. The dynamics of forward scattering of light is presented, and nonclassical behaviour of the delay dependence of correlation function ('overshoots' and 'undershoots') is discussed. For the analytical treatment of this system, a method based on the polariton approach is devised, which includes the treatment of driving and damping. It is shown that this method is ideally suited to the analysis of strongly coupled systems, where only a few photons contribute to the dynamics.

The proton polarization in the 3He(d,p)4He reaction induced by unpolarized deuterons has been measured at deuteron lab. energies of 2.0, 2.8, 3.9 and 6.0MeV for 20 angles between 0° and 150° (c.m.). Statistical uncertainties are typically ± 0.01. The measurements were made with a proton polarimeter in which the left-right asymmetry of scattering at 60° (lab.) in 4He is determined. The polarimeter employs "venetian-blind" collimation of the protons by conical vanes and 75 cm2 plastic scintillator detectors. Four detectors are included for use in polarization transfer experiments. For 10.5 MeV protons and a helium pressure of 250 p.s.i. the target thickness is 3 MeV and the efficiency per detector per unpolarized proton incident is 10-4. For each polarimeter detector a triple coincidence with a 15 ns resolving time was required with two scintillator transmission detectors preceding the polarimeter. Spectra of random coincidences were accumulated simultaneously and subtracted. Asymmetries resulting from polarimeter-target misalignment and other geometrical effects are discussed. All results quoted are geometric means of pairs of measurements for 180° rotation of the polarimeter and are also arithmetic means of such measurements to left and right of the 3He target. The absolute analyzing power is estimated by computer simulation of trajectories to be -0.638 ± 0.020 for protons entering at 10.3 MeV. The product of polarization and cross section is fitted to an expansion of first-order associated Legendre polynomials using these results and earlier measurements. Only four terms are required except at 6.0MeV where a fifth is necessary. The energy dependence of these coefficients suggests resonances in 5Li at deuteron energies of 60MeV (odd coefficients) and 7.5 MeV (even coefficients) in agreement with results for the polarized-beam analyzing powers(1). Comparison of the results with vector-polarized-beam (1) and polarized-target(2) analyzing powers shows no evidence for the postulated simple relations(3) based on DWBA cal calculations. Comparison of the results with recent measurements of the neutron polarization in the mirror reaction(4) shows no significant differences. The theory of angular correlations in charged particle reactions is developed and used to calculate outgoing nucleon polarizations. Expressions are given for polarization transfer coefficients. These coefficients are evaluated in terms of the T-matrix elements for the interference of various channels with the dominant S-wave, JΠ = 3+/2 channel in 3He(d,p)4He at the 0.43 MeV resonance. Two experiments to measure combinations of these elements are discussed. (1) Gruebler, W. et al., 1971, Nucl. Phys. Al76, 631 (2) Leemann, Ch., W. Gruebler et al., 1971, in Polarization Phenomena in Nuclear Reactions (University of Wisconsin Press), p. 548 (3) Tanifuji,M. and K. Yazaki, 1968, Prog. Theor. Phys. 40, 1023 (4) Mutchler, G.S., W.B. Broste and J.E. Simmons, 1971, Phys. Rev. C3, 1031

This thesis investigates the properties of an atomic system exhibiting a giant Kerr nonlinearity. The atomic energy level scheme involves four energy levels. A three level A subsystem in the atom exhibits the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), reducing the spontaneous emission noise. The fourth level leads to an ac-Stark shift of the ground state, which in turn leads to a giant, noiseless Kerr nonlinearity. Two different environments are explored. First, a system comprising of large number of atoms in an optical cavity is analysed. Detailed aspects of noise reduction in this system are investigated. In particular, strong squeezing in the quadrature in phase with the field driving the cavity mode is found, if the effective coupling of light to the atoms is strong. However, the linewidth of the predicted squeezing is found to be very narrow. This is attributed to a very steep linear susceptibility of the atomic medium. Since the widening of the squeezing window is possible only for weaker effective coupling, in turn reducing the squeezing level, a different environment is proposed. This involves a single four level atom, strongly coupled to the cavity mode. In such a strongly coupled system, the most appropriate approach is found to be that formulated in terms of polaritons – composite excitations of the 'atom-cavity molecule'. Adopting the polariton approach, nonclassical correlations in the field leaving the cavity are investigated. Strong photon antibunching is found and the effect of photon blockade predicted and described. The photon blockade effect can also be found in a system comprised of a two level atom coupled to the cavity mode, if the external driving is tuned to one of the vacuum Rabi resonances. A comparison between the two schemes is performed, and it is found that the four level scheme exhibits much better photon blockade. The reason for this is quantum interference between secondary transitions in the dressed states picture. Destructive interference cancels the transitions that would otherwise introduce a second photon into the system, hence producing a more robust photon blockade. All of these results are valid in the regime where external driving is weak. If the external driving strength is increased, the photon statistics (as measured by the zero-delay second order correlation function) changes from strong antibunching to strong bunching, over a relatively narrow range of driving strengths. The occurrence of this change can again be attributed to quantum interference. It is shown that the interference effect prevents the excitation of the composite system by a second photon, but not excitation by a two-photon transition (following the first excitation). Therefore, the third excitation manifold is excited, which then decays back to the first manifold in a two photon cascade. This two photon cascade is the source of correlated photon pairs causing an increase in the second order correlation function. The dynamics of forward scattering of light is presented, and nonclassical behaviour of the delay dependence of correlation function ('overshoots' and 'undershoots') is discussed. For the analytical treatment of this system, a method based on the polariton approach is devised, which includes the treatment of driving and damping. It is shown that this method is ideally suited to the analysis of strongly coupled systems, where only a few photons contribute to the dynamics.

Les recherches sur la fusion thermonucléaire par confinement magnétique visent à l'obtention de plasmas chauffés majoritairement par les réactions de fusion entre les ions Deuterium et Tritium. Cette thèse se place dans la problématique générale de l'étude du transport turbulent, qui limite les performances d'un tokamak. Le champ électrique radial (dirigé vers l'intérieur ou l'extérieur du plasma, de géométrie torique) peut être à l'origine de barrières de transport lorsque son cisaillement devient suffisamment important pour causer une décorrélation des structures tourbillonnaires. Lors de ce travail de thèse, nous nous sommes intéressés aux mécanismes à l'origine de la génération spontanée du champ électrique radial à l'intérieur de la dernière surface magnétique fermée. Sur le tokamak Tore Supra, un diagnostic de réflectométrie Doppler permet une mesure quasi-directe de la vitesse de dérive électrique associée au champ électrique radial. L'influence du ripple, ondulation de l'intensité du champ magnétique dans la direction toroïdale dûe au nombre fini de bobines, est examinée par la comparaison des mesures avec les prédictions de plusieurs modèles, associés à différents régimes de diffusion (ripple-plateau, piégeage local). Nous étudions ensuite plus en détail un cas expérimental où le champ électrique radial, usuellement négatif à l'intérieur du plasma, devient localement positif, ce qui suggère la présence de mécanismes alternatifs non-ambipolaires. Le rôle possible de l'activité MHD et des ilots magnétiques est discuté à partir des mesures effectuées.

High deposition rates on large areas are industrial needs for mass production of microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) solar cells. This doctoral work aims at exploring the usefulness of Matrix Distributed Electron Cyclotron Resonance (MDECR) plasmas to process the intrinsic layer of μc-Si:H p-i-n solar cells at high rates. With the high dissociation of silane achieved in MDECR plasmas, deposition rates as high as 6nm/s and 2.8nm/s have been demonstrated in our lab for amorphous and microcrystalline silicon respectively, without hydrogen dilution. This technique is also promising because it can be easily scaled up on large areas, just by extending the matrix of elementary microwave applicators. This subject was a unique opportunity to cover the whole chain of this field of research : A new MDECR reactor has been specially designed and assembled during this project. Its maintenance and its improvement have been important technical challenges : for example, the addition of a load-lock enabled us to lower the oxygen concentration in our films by a factor of 10. The impact of the deposition parameters (e.g. the ion energy, the substrate temperature, different gas mixtures, the microwave power) has been explored in extensive parametric studies in order to optimize the material quality. Great efforts have been invested in the characterization of the films. Our strategy has been to develop a wide range of diagnostics (ellipsometry, Raman spectroscopy, SIMS, FTIR, XRD, electrical characterizations etc.). Finally, p-i-n cells have been processed with the selected interesting materials. The successive successful improvements in the material quality (e.g. diffusion lengths of holes parallel to the substrate as high as 250 nm) did unfortunately not result in high efficiency solar cells. Their limited performance is in particular due to a very poor response in the red part of the spectrum resulting in low current densities. Consequently, the potential sources of limitation of the reactor, the material and the device have been studied : e.g. the presence of “cracks” prone to post-oxidation in the highly crystallized materials and the risk of deterioration of the ZnO substrate or of the p-doped layer by a too high process temperature or by hydrogen diffusing from the plasma.

Les microplasmas correspondent à des décharges confinées sur de faibles échelles spatiales (typiquement quelques 100 µm) offrant ainsi une grande stabilité pour des densités de puissance de l'ordre de 100 kW/cm3. L'étude de ces décharges s'est fortement développée à partir du début des années 2000 tant sur le plan théorique qu'expérimental. Leur intérêt réside dans la possibilité de générer des plasmas à moyenne et haute pression avec de faibles tensions et dans les nombreuses applications potentielles telle que le traitement de surface, les sources de lumière ou bien encore la micro-propulsion spatiale. Les microdécharges à cathode creuse (MHCD) constituent une configuration particulière de microplasmas. La décharge est générée dans l'argon en appliquant une différence de potentiels entre les deux électrodes qui sont assemblées sous forme d'un sandwich électrode-diélectrique-électrode percé sur toute la longueur par un trou de quelques centaines de micromètres. D'un point de vue expérimental, une étude par imagerie et spectroscopie d'émission nous a permis de déterminer les mécanismes d'émission de la lumière, la structure de la décharge, la température du gaz ainsi que la densité électronique. D'un point de vue théorique, nous avons développé des modèles semi-analytiques permettant d'obtenir des lois d'échelle et des comportements macroscopiques, et de vérifier ainsi les interprétations expérimentales. Malgré le nombre important d'hypothèses et d'approximations sur lesquelles reposent les différents modèles développés, la comparaison entre résultats théoriques et expérimentaux nous a permis de capter une partie de la physique impliquée au sein des MHCD.

Les agrégats de gaz rare constituent un état de la matière intermédiaire entre les cibles solides et les atomes en phase gazeuse. Il a été démontré que les agrégats irradiés sont sources d'ions, d'électrons, de neutrons énergétiques ainsi que de rayonnement allant du visible aux X durs. Cette source peut-être produite avec un taux de répétition élevé et a l'avantage de ne pas produire de débris, et de présenter une très forte conversion de l'énergie laser incidente. Nous nous intéressons au rayonnement X particulièrement, en le caractérisant en intensité, spectre et durée, comme préalable à toute application. En collaboration avec l'INRS-Energie (Varenne, Canada), nous avons mis en œuvre une caméra à balayage de fente dont la résolution temporelle est de 800 fs rms. En focalisant des impulsions laser courtes (30 fs - 5 ps) et intenses (jusqu'à 1e17 W/cm2) sur des agrégats d'argon (15 - 30 nm), nous avons démontré que l'émission X dont l'énergie est supérieure à 2 keV est plus courte que la résolution temporelle. En couplant la caméra à un cristal tronconique, nous nous sommes intéressés au rayonnement de couche K dans la gamme 2,9 - 3,2 keV. Nous avons démontré que ce rayonnement a une durée inférieure à la résolution temporelle, et que les raies étaient émises avec un écart temporel relatif inférieur à 1 ps. Une simulation basée sur un modèle nano-plasma et sur un code collisionnel-radiatif a été développée au CELIA. Les spectres X résolus en temps calculés reproduisent à la fois la brièveté d'émission du rayonnement X et les états de charge élevés observés.

Cette thèse présente une série de diagnostiques tir-par-tir non invasifs pour des paquets d'électrons produits par un accélérateur laser-plasma (LPA). Trois phénomènes d'injection du LPA sont caractérisés : auto-injection canalisée et autoguidée, injection dans une rampe plasma et injection par collision de pulses laser. De nouvelles techniques sont démontrées : simplification des mesures de densité en utilisant un détecteur de front d'onde multiplie la sensitivité par 8, le fort couplage spatiotemporel du pulse THz focalisé est démontré par convolution des champs électriques (TEX) de deux pulses sondes et confirme la double structure du paquet observée avec le spectromètre à électrons, et des émittances transverses normalisées de 0.1 mm mrad sont démontrées pour des électrons de 0.5 GeV produits dans un LPA à capillaire en caractérisant la radiation bétatron émise par les électrons à l'intérieur du plasma en utilisant une nouvelle technique de spectrométrie X tir-par-tir.

L'objet de ce travail consiste dans un premier temps en la modélisation d'une source plasma filaire en régime continu basse pression, puis, dans un second temps, en la caractérisation des propriétés d'une source d'ions développée sur la base de la source plasma préalablement étudiée. Un code particulaire permettant de modéliser le fonctionnement de la source plasma est ainsi développé, puis validé par comparaison avec les résultats d'une étude expérimentale. A la lueur des résultats de simulation, une analyse de la décharge en termes d'écoulement ionique de Child-Langmuir collisionnel en géométrie cylindrique est proposée, permettant alors d'interpréter la transition de mode comme une réorganisation naturelle de la décharge lorsque le courant de décharge excède un courant limite fonction de la tension de décharge, de la pression et de l'espace inter-électrodes. L'analyse de la fonction de distribution en énergie des ions impactant la cathode met par ailleurs en évidence la possibilité d'extraire un faisceau d'ions de faible dispersion en énergie autour de la tension de décharge, et ce sous réserve d'opérer la décharge dans son mode haute pression. Un prototype de source d'ions permettant l'extraction et l'accélération d'ions à partir de la source filaire est alors proposé. L'étude expérimentale d'un tel dispositif confirme le fait que l'adjonction d'un processus d'accélération se traduit par un simple décalage de la fonction de distribution en vitesse des ions d'une valeur correspondant à la tension d'accélération, mais ne l'élargit pas. Il est ainsi possible de produire des faisceaux d'ions de diverses espèces ioniques, d'énergie modulable (0-5 keV) et de dispersion en énergie limitée (~ 10 eV). Les courants de faisceau mesurés sont de quelques dizaines de micro-ampères, et la divergence d'un tel faisceau est de l'ordre du degré. Une modélisation numérique de cette source d'ions est finalement entreprise afin d'identifier de possibles optimisations du concept proposé.