This thesis on multicarrier effects in the magnetotransport and optical properties of Mercury Cadmium Telluride (MCT or HgCdTe) covers mainly: design, construction and calibration of a 12T 4K and 19T 77K pulsed high magnetic field systems; temperature dependent magnetotransport measurements upto 15T performed on the home-built pulsed magnet systems; computational techniques developed to extract densities and mobilities of various carriers, especially low mobility heavy holes, participating in conduction; theoretical analysis of heavy hole mobility based on Boltzmann transport equation; temperature dependent optical absorption experiments in the Mid and Far-IR on bulk and thin film samples; and theoretical modelling of optical absorption below bandgap. The work essentially probes the low and high frequency conductivity of the semiconductor alloy Hg1?xCdxTe by performing microscopic calculations of scattering related phenomena of its free carriers at higher temperatures (200 K–300 K) and comparing with experimental data. Special attention is given to properties of heavy holes as the effects due to these carriers appear only at higher magnetic fields. It is demonstrated that in this temperature range and at high magnetic fields, taking both measured resistivity and derived conductivity in the multicarrier analysis gives better results which are then applied to explain both heavy hole mobility as well as free carrier absorption without further fitting parameters and using a minimal set of necessary intrinsic properties. The agreement thus obtained with experimental data is shown to be excellent. The bulk and epilayer samples used in this thesis were grown by the MCT group headed by R. K. Sharma (SSPL, Delhi). The organization of the thesis is as follows: Chapter 1 The importance of Mercury Cadmium Telluride as a narrow gap semiconductor for infrared detection is introduced. The relevant physical and material properties of HgCdTe are reviewed. Chapter 2 A low cost 12T pulsed magnet system has been integrated with a closed-cycle Helium refrigerator (CCR) for performing magnetotransport measurements. Minimal delay between pulses and AC current excitation with software lock-in to reduce noise enable quick but accurate measurements to be performed at temperatures 4K-300K upto 12T. An additional pulsed magnet operating with a liquid nitrogen cryostat extends the range upto 19T. The instrument has been calibrated against a commercial superconducting magnet by comparing quantum Hall effect data in a p-channel SiGe/Si heterostructure and common issues arising out of pulsed magnet usage have been addressed. The versatility of the system is demonstrated through magnetotransport measurements in a variety of samples such as heterostructures, narrow gap semiconductors and those exhibiting giant magnetoresistance. Chapter 3 The necessity of employing multicarrier methods in magnetotransport of narrow gap semiconductors is brought out. In these materials, mixed conduction is seen to exist at nearly all temperatures of interest. Methods of extracting two of the most important transport parameters of device interest, density and mobility, from the variable magnetic field Hall and magnetoresistance measurements are elaborated. Improvements have been made to the conventional non-linear least squares fitting procedure and are demonstrated. Chapter 4 Magnetotransport measurements in pulsed fields upto 15 Tesla have been performed on Mercury Cadmium Telluride (Hg1?xCdxTe, x?0.2) bulk as well as liquid phase epitaxially grown samples to obtain the resistivity and conductivity tensors in the temperature range 220K to 300 K. Mobilities and densities of various carriers participating in conduction have been extracted using both conventional multicarrier fitting (MCF) and Mobility Spectrum Analysis(MSA). The fits to experimental data, particularly at the highest magnetic fields, were substantially improved when MCF is applied to minimize errors simultaneously on both resistivity and conductivity tensors. The semiclassical Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE) has been solved without using adjustable parameters by incorporating the following scattering mechanisms to fit the mobility: ionized impurity, polar and nonpolar optical phonon, acoustic deformation potential and alloy disorder. Compared to previous estimates based on the relaxation time approximation with out-scattering only, polar optical scattering and ionized impurity scattering limited mobilities are shown to be larger due to the correct incorporation of the in-scattering term taking into account the overlap integrals in the valence band. Chapter 5 Optical absorption measurements have been performed on bulk Mercury Cadmium Telluride (Hg1?xCdxTe, x?0.2) samples between 4K and 300 K. After fitting the Urbach part of the spectrum in the mid-infrared, below bandgap absorption is modeled using only basic processes and mechanisms, i.e. intervalence transitions and free carrier absorption (FCA). The additive FCA coefficients for individual carriers have been calculated using known quantum mechanically derived expressions for scattering due to polar and nonpolar optical phonons, ionized impurities and acoustic deformation potential mechanisms found to be relevant for electrical transport in this temperature range. The densities of carriers used in the calculations are derived from a modified multicarrier fitting (MCF) procedure on both resistivity and conductivity tensors from magnetotransport measurements in pulsed fields upto 15 Tesla from 220K to 300 K, thus making hole density more reliable. It is found that such a treatment is sufficient to model the absorption spectra below bandgap quite accurately without introducing any additional mechanical or compositional defect related phenomena. Chapter 6 A summary of the work carried out in this thesis is presented. Some future directions including preliminary work to measure carrier mobilities at high electric fields and effect of hydrogen passivation in MCT are briefly discussed.

In this thesis, we investigate optical and electrical properties of dilute nitride semiconductors GaAsN in pulsed magnetic fields up to 62 T. For the most part, the experiments are performed at the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD). In the first part of this thesis, the electron effective mass of GaAsN is determined with a direct method for the first time. Cyclotron resonance (CR) absorption spectroscopy is performed in Si-doped GaAsN epilayers with a nitrogen content up to 0.2%. For the CR absorption study, we use the combination of the free-electron laser FELBE and pulsed magnetic fields at the HLD, both located at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. A slight increase of the CR electron effective mass with N content is obtained. This result is in excellent agreement with calculations based on the band anticrossing model and the empirical tight-binding method. We also find an increase of the band nonparabolicity with increasing N concentration in agreement with our calculations of the energy dependent momentum effective mass. In the second part of this thesis, the photoluminescence (PL) characteristics of intrinsic GaAsN and n-doped GaAsN:Si is studied. The PL of intrinsic and very dilute GaAsN is characterized by both GaAs-related transitions and N-induced features. These distinct peaks merge into a broad spectral band of localized excitons (LEs) when the N content is increased. This so-called LE-band exhibits a partially delocalized character because of overlapping exciton wave functions and an efficient interexcitonic population transfer. Merged spectra dominate the PL of all Si-doped GaAsN samples. They have contributions of free and localized excitons and are consequently blue-shifted with respect to LE-bands of intrinsic GaAsN. The highly merged PL profiles of GaAsN:Si are studied systematically for the first time with temperature-dependent time-resolved PL. The PL decay is predominantly monoexponential and has a strong energy dispersion. In comparison to formerly reported values of intrinsic GaAsN epilayers, the determined decay times of GaAsN:Si are reduced by a factor of 10 because of enhanced Shockley-Read-Hall and possibly Auger recombinations. In the third part of this thesis, intrinsic and Si-doped GaAsN are investigated with magneto-PL in fields up to 62 T. A magneto-PL setup for pulsed magnetic fields of the HLD was built for this purpose. The blue-shift of LE-bands is studied in high magnetic fields in order to investigate its delocalized character. The blue-shift is diminished in intrinsic GaAsN at higher temperatures, which indicates that the interexcitonic population transfer is only active below a critical temperature 20 K < T < 50 K. A similar increase of the temperature has no significant impact on the partially delocalized character of the merged spectral band of GaAsN:Si. We conclude that the interexcitonic transfer of Si-doped GaAsN is more complex than in undoped GaAsN. In order to determine reduced masses of undoped GaAsN and GaAs:Si, the field-induced shift of the free exciton transition is studied in the high-field limit. We find an excellent agreement of GaAs:Si with a formerly published value of intrinsic GaAs which was determined with the same method. In both cases, the reduced mass values are enhanced by 20% in comparison to the accepted reduced mass values of GaAs. The determined GaAsN masses are 1.5 times larger than in GaAs:Si and match the rising trend of formerly reported electron effective masses of GaAsN.

The present thesis is devoted to the investigation of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) by direct measurements in pulsed and quasi-static magnetic fields as well as by analyzing specific-heat data taken in static magnetic fields. The emphasis is on the direct measurement of the adiabatic temperature change Tad in pulsed magnetic fields, because the pulsed-field data allow for an analysis of the sample-temperature response to the magnetic field on a time scale of 10 to 100 ms, which is on the order of typical operation frequencies (10 - 100 Hz) of magnetocaloric cooling devices. Besides extending the accessible magneticfield range to beyond 70 T, the short pulse duration provides nearly adiabatic conditions during the measurement. In this work, the magnetocaloric properties of various types of solids are investigated: Gadolinium (Gd) with a second-order transition, Ni50Mn35In15 with multiple magnetic transitions, and La(Fe,Si,Co)13 compounds with first and second-order transitions, depending on the Co concentration. The adiabatic temperature change of a polycrystalline Gd sample has been measured in pulsed magnetic fields up to 70 T and also in quasi-static fields up to 2 T. A very large adiabatic temperature change of Tad 60 K is observed near the Curie temperature (TC = 294 K) for a field change of 70 T. In addition, we find that this maximum temperature change grows with H2=3. We have studied the MCE in the shape-memory Heusler alloy Ni50Mn35In15 by direct measurements in pulsed magnetic fields up to 6 and 20 T. The results obtained for 6 T pulses are compared with data extracted from specific-heat experiments. We find a saturation of the inverse MCE, related to the firstorder martensitic transition, with a maximum adiabatic temperature change of Tad = 7 K at 250 K and a conventional field-dependent MCE near the second-order ferromagnetic transition in the austenitic phase. Our results disclose that in shape-memory alloys the different contributions to the MCE and hysteresis effects around the martensitic transition have to be carefully considered for future cooling applications. Finally, a comparative study of the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of La(Fe,Si,Co)13 alloys is presented by discussing magnetization, Tad, specificheat, and magnetostriction measurements. The nature of the transition can be changed from first to second order as well as the temperature of the transition can be tuned by varying the Co concentration. The MCE of two samples with nominal compositions of LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13 and LaFe11:21Co0:65Si1:11 have been measured in pulsed magnetic fields up to 50 T. We find that LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13 with a first-order transition (TC = 198 K) shows half of the net MCE already at low fields (2-10 T). Whereas the MCE of LaFe11:21Co0:65Si1:11 with secondorder transition (TC = 257 K) grows gradually. The MCE in both compounds reaches almost similar values at a field of 50 T. The MCE results obtained in pulsed magnetic fields of 2 T are in good agreement with data from quasistatic field measurements. The pulsed-field magnetization of both compounds has been measured in fields up to 60 T under nearly adiabatic conditions and compared to steady-field isothermal measurements. The differences between the magnetization curves obtained under isothermal and adiabatic conditions give the MCE via the crossing points of the adiabatic curve with the set of isothermal curves. For LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13, a S - T diagram has been constructed from specific-heat measurements in static fields, which is used to extract the MCE indirectly. Magnetostriction measurements are carried out for two compounds in both static and pulsed magnetic fields. For LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13, the strain shows a sharp increase. However, due to cracks appearing in the sample an irreversible magneto-volume effect of about 1% is observed in pulsed magnetic fields. Whereas for LaFe11:21Co0:65Si1:11 the data show a smooth increase of the sample length up to 60 T, and a 1.3% volume increase is obtained. We also find that magnetizing the latter sample in the paramagnetic state is tightly bound to the volume increase and this, likewise for the former sample, gives the main contribution to the entropy change.

In this thesis, we investigate optical and electrical properties of dilute nitride semiconductors GaAsN in pulsed magnetic fields up to 62 T. For the most part, the experiments are performed at the Dresden High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD). In the first part of this thesis, the electron effective mass of GaAsN is determined with a direct method for the first time. Cyclotron resonance (CR) absorption spectroscopy is performed in Si-doped GaAsN epilayers with a nitrogen content up to 0.2%. For the CR absorption study, we use the combination of the free-electron laser FELBE and pulsed magnetic fields at the HLD, both located at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. A slight increase of the CR electron effective mass with N content is obtained. This result is in excellent agreement with calculations based on the band anticrossing model and the empirical tight-binding method. We also find an increase of the band nonparabolicity with increasing N concentration in agreement with our calculations of the energy dependent momentum effective mass. In the second part of this thesis, the photoluminescence (PL) characteristics of intrinsic GaAsN and n-doped GaAsN:Si is studied. The PL of intrinsic and very dilute GaAsN is characterized by both GaAs-related transitions and N-induced features. These distinct peaks merge into a broad spectral band of localized excitons (LEs) when the N content is increased. This so-called LE-band exhibits a partially delocalized character because of overlapping exciton wave functions and an efficient interexcitonic population transfer. Merged spectra dominate the PL of all Si-doped GaAsN samples. They have contributions of free and localized excitons and are consequently blue-shifted with respect to LE-bands of intrinsic GaAsN. The highly merged PL profiles of GaAsN:Si are studied systematically for the first time with temperature-dependent time-resolved PL. The PL decay is predominantly monoexponential and has a strong energy dispersion. In comparison to formerly reported values of intrinsic GaAsN epilayers, the determined decay times of GaAsN:Si are reduced by a factor of 10 because of enhanced Shockley-Read-Hall and possibly Auger recombinations. In the third part of this thesis, intrinsic and Si-doped GaAsN are investigated with magneto-PL in fields up to 62 T. A magneto-PL setup for pulsed magnetic fields of the HLD was built for this purpose. The blue-shift of LE-bands is studied in high magnetic fields in order to investigate its delocalized character. The blue-shift is diminished in intrinsic GaAsN at higher temperatures, which indicates that the interexcitonic population transfer is only active below a critical temperature 20 K < T < 50 K. A similar increase of the temperature has no significant impact on the partially delocalized character of the merged spectral band of GaAsN:Si. We conclude that the interexcitonic transfer of Si-doped GaAsN is more complex than in undoped GaAsN. In order to determine reduced masses of undoped GaAsN and GaAs:Si, the field-induced shift of the free exciton transition is studied in the high-field limit. We find an excellent agreement of GaAs:Si with a formerly published value of intrinsic GaAs which was determined with the same method. In both cases, the reduced mass values are enhanced by 20% in comparison to the accepted reduced mass values of GaAs. The determined GaAsN masses are 1.5 times larger than in GaAs:Si and match the rising trend of formerly reported electron effective masses of GaAsN.

Höchste Magnetfelder haben sich zu einem unverzichtbaren Werkzeug der Festkörperphysik entwickelt. Sie werden insbesondere verwendet, um die elektronischen Eigenschaften von modernen Materialien zu erforschen. Da Magnetfelder oberhalb von 45 Tesla nicht mehr mit statischen (z.B. supraleitenden) Feldern zu erreichen sind, haben sich weltweit verschiedene Labore auf die Erzeugung gepulster Magnetfelder mit angestrebten Maximalwerten von 100 Tesla spezialisiert. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Anwendungsmöglichkeiten der kernmagnetischen Resonanz (NMR) in gepulsten Magnetfeldern aufgezeigt. Es ist gelungen, die starke Zeitabhängigkeit der gepulsten Magnetfelder mittels NMR präzise zu vermessen. Die genaue Kenntnis des Magnetfelds nach dem Puls ermöglicht, die Zeitabhängigkeit aus den Daten zu entfernen, sodass auch eine kohärente Signal-Mittelung möglich ist. Davon ausgehend werden erstmalig Messungen der chemischen Verschiebung, der Knight Shift, der Spin-Gitter-Relaxationsrate 1/T1 und der Spin-Spin-Relaxationsrate 1/T2 diskutiert. Schließlich werden die im Zusammenhang mit gepulsten Magnetfeldern erarbeiteten Gleichungen in vereinfachter Form zur genauen Messung und Analyse des freien Induktions-Zerfalls von 19F Kernspins in Calciumfluorid verwendet. Durch Messung des Zerfalls über sechs Größenordnungen wird eine genaue Analyse bezüglich einer neuartigen Theorie ermöglicht, welche den Zerfall basierend auf der Annahme mikroskopischen Chaos\' erklärt. Diese Theorie hat das Potenzial, zu einem tieferen Verständnis von Quantenchaos in makroskopischen Vielteilchensystemen zu führen.

In the present work, the magnetotransport measurement technique was developed and various materials, exhibiting resistances from 1 mOhm up to several tens of kOhm, were investigated in pulsed magnetic fields of up to 60 T. Phase diagrams of irreversibility and upper critical fields for pure and Zn-doped YBa2Cu3O_7-x high-temperature superconductors were measured. A high-field study of the electronic properties of the two semimetals LaBiPt and CeBiPt were presented. Magnetoresistance of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 and La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 thin films were investigated.

The present thesis is devoted to the investigation of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) by direct measurements in pulsed and quasi-static magnetic fields as well as by analyzing specific-heat data taken in static magnetic fields. The emphasis is on the direct measurement of the adiabatic temperature change Tad in pulsed magnetic fields, because the pulsed-field data allow for an analysis of the sample-temperature response to the magnetic field on a time scale of 10 to 100 ms, which is on the order of typical operation frequencies (10 - 100 Hz) of magnetocaloric cooling devices. Besides extending the accessible magneticfield range to beyond 70 T, the short pulse duration provides nearly adiabatic conditions during the measurement. In this work, the magnetocaloric properties of various types of solids are investigated: Gadolinium (Gd) with a second-order transition, Ni50Mn35In15 with multiple magnetic transitions, and La(Fe,Si,Co)13 compounds with first and second-order transitions, depending on the Co concentration. The adiabatic temperature change of a polycrystalline Gd sample has been measured in pulsed magnetic fields up to 70 T and also in quasi-static fields up to 2 T. A very large adiabatic temperature change of Tad 60 K is observed near the Curie temperature (TC = 294 K) for a field change of 70 T. In addition, we find that this maximum temperature change grows with H2=3. We have studied the MCE in the shape-memory Heusler alloy Ni50Mn35In15 by direct measurements in pulsed magnetic fields up to 6 and 20 T. The results obtained for 6 T pulses are compared with data extracted from specific-heat experiments. We find a saturation of the inverse MCE, related to the firstorder martensitic transition, with a maximum adiabatic temperature change of Tad = 7 K at 250 K and a conventional field-dependent MCE near the second-order ferromagnetic transition in the austenitic phase. Our results disclose that in shape-memory alloys the different contributions to the MCE and hysteresis effects around the martensitic transition have to be carefully considered for future cooling applications. Finally, a comparative study of the magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of La(Fe,Si,Co)13 alloys is presented by discussing magnetization, Tad, specificheat, and magnetostriction measurements. The nature of the transition can be changed from first to second order as well as the temperature of the transition can be tuned by varying the Co concentration. The MCE of two samples with nominal compositions of LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13 and LaFe11:21Co0:65Si1:11 have been measured in pulsed magnetic fields up to 50 T. We find that LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13 with a first-order transition (TC = 198 K) shows half of the net MCE already at low fields (2-10 T). Whereas the MCE of LaFe11:21Co0:65Si1:11 with secondorder transition (TC = 257 K) grows gradually. The MCE in both compounds reaches almost similar values at a field of 50 T. The MCE results obtained in pulsed magnetic fields of 2 T are in good agreement with data from quasistatic field measurements. The pulsed-field magnetization of both compounds has been measured in fields up to 60 T under nearly adiabatic conditions and compared to steady-field isothermal measurements. The differences between the magnetization curves obtained under isothermal and adiabatic conditions give the MCE via the crossing points of the adiabatic curve with the set of isothermal curves. For LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13, a S - T diagram has been constructed from specific-heat measurements in static fields, which is used to extract the MCE indirectly. Magnetostriction measurements are carried out for two compounds in both static and pulsed magnetic fields. For LaFe11:74Co0:13Si1:13, the strain shows a sharp increase. However, due to cracks appearing in the sample an irreversible magneto-volume effect of about 1% is observed in pulsed magnetic fields. Whereas for LaFe11:21Co0:65Si1:11 the data show a smooth increase of the sample length up to 60 T, and a 1.3% volume increase is obtained. We also find that magnetizing the latter sample in the paramagnetic state is tightly bound to the volume increase and this, likewise for the former sample, gives the main contribution to the entropy change.

Höchste Magnetfelder haben sich zu einem unverzichtbaren Werkzeug der Festkörperphysik entwickelt. Sie werden insbesondere verwendet, um die elektronischen Eigenschaften von modernen Materialien zu erforschen. Da Magnetfelder oberhalb von 45 Tesla nicht mehr mit statischen (z.B. supraleitenden) Feldern zu erreichen sind, haben sich weltweit verschiedene Labore auf die Erzeugung gepulster Magnetfelder mit angestrebten Maximalwerten von 100 Tesla spezialisiert. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Anwendungsmöglichkeiten der kernmagnetischen Resonanz (NMR) in gepulsten Magnetfeldern aufgezeigt. Es ist gelungen, die starke Zeitabhängigkeit der gepulsten Magnetfelder mittels NMR präzise zu vermessen. Die genaue Kenntnis des Magnetfelds nach dem Puls ermöglicht, die Zeitabhängigkeit aus den Daten zu entfernen, sodass auch eine kohärente Signal-Mittelung möglich ist. Davon ausgehend werden erstmalig Messungen der chemischen Verschiebung, der Knight Shift, der Spin-Gitter-Relaxationsrate 1/T1 und der Spin-Spin-Relaxationsrate 1/T2 diskutiert. Schließlich werden die im Zusammenhang mit gepulsten Magnetfeldern erarbeiteten Gleichungen in vereinfachter Form zur genauen Messung und Analyse des freien Induktions-Zerfalls von 19F Kernspins in Calciumfluorid verwendet. Durch Messung des Zerfalls über sechs Größenordnungen wird eine genaue Analyse bezüglich einer neuartigen Theorie ermöglicht, welche den Zerfall basierend auf der Annahme mikroskopischen Chaos\'' erklärt. Diese Theorie hat das Potenzial, zu einem tieferen Verständnis von Quantenchaos in makroskopischen Vielteilchensystemen zu führen.

This thesis describes a portfolio of work aimed at the high field applications of superconductors and can be split into four main topics: The thermal stability of technical superconductors. This section investigates the effects of thermal perturbations on technical superconducting wire used in MRI scanner construction. The ultimate aim of this section is to predict how the architecture of the wire may affect its thermal stability. To this end a detailed finite element analysis model was constructed, verified by detailed experimental data, which could then be used to quickly and easily vary the wire’s parameters. Design of a high field pulsed electromagnetic coil for flux trapping in superconductors. This section details the design, construction and testing of a novel pulsed high field magnet. The design uses finite element analysis to predict the electromagnetic, thermal and structural properties of the coil. Explosive testing of high tensile fibres used in the construction of the high field coil. This section describes the refinement and use of a novel method for testing the mechanical properties of high tensile fibres in cylindrical geometries by using highly pressurized copper vessels. Pulsed field magnetization of bulk high temperature superconductors. This section discusses the process of magnetizing bulks of high temperature superconductors by using pulsed magnetic fields. It investigates how the trapped field varies with the magnitude and rise-time of the magnetizing field, sample temperature and time after magnetization.

In the present work, the magnetotransport measurement technique was developed and various materials, exhibiting resistances from 1 mOhm up to several tens of kOhm, were investigated in pulsed magnetic fields of up to 60 T. Phase diagrams of irreversibility and upper critical fields for pure and Zn-doped YBa2Cu3O_7-x high-temperature superconductors were measured. A high-field study of the electronic properties of the two semimetals LaBiPt and CeBiPt were presented. Magnetoresistance of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 and La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 thin films were investigated.