This thesis investigates the use of single Cooper-pair transistor (SCPT) for fast and sensitive detection of quasiparticle dynamics. This investigation is motivated by the possibility of quantum information processing using superconducting nanoscale circuits, such as the SCPT and the Cooper-pair-box (CPB). In the SCPT coherent charge transport can be temporarily halted due to quasiparticle tunnelling, known as quasiparticle poisoning. Quasiparticle poisoning can be reduced by the use of engineered island and lead gap energies. The thesis begins by reporting measurements of the superconducting gap in aluminium - aluminium-oxide - aluminium tunnel junctions, as a function of film thickness. We have observed an increase in the superconducting energy gap of aluminium with decreasing film thickness. This method is used to engineer the island and gap energies in a SCPT and consequently we observe reduced poisoning and a modification of the thresholds for finite bias transport processes. Radio-frequency reflectometry is used to perform high-bandwidth measurements of quasiparticle tunnelling in a gap engineered SCPT. A model for the radio-frequency (rf) operation of the SCPT is presented and shows close agreement with experiment. Thermal activation of the quasiparticle dynamics is investigated, and consequently, we are able to determine energetics of the poisoning and unpoisoning processes. This enables an effective quasiparticle temperature to be determined, allowing the poisoning to be parametrised. An investigation of the use of normal metal quasiparticle traps for suppression of quasiparticle poisoning in SCPT devices is performed. To date, there has been little quantitative information about the behaviour of quasiparticle traps even though they have been used extensively. The work presented serves to clarify the nature of quasiparticle trap performance. Finally the single-quasiparticle sensitivity of the SCPT is employed to directly probe a few quasiparticle gas in a small superconducting volume. The quasiparticle population is monitored both in the steady-state and under non-equilibrium conditions of injection. In the non-equilibrium regime the quasiparticle recombination time is accessed from the response of the SCPT to pulsed injection. Agreement to previous experimental studies of recombination times in aluminium is found.

This thesis investigates the use of single Cooper-pair transistor (SCPT) for fast and sensitive detection of quasiparticle dynamics. This investigation is motivated by the possibility of quantum information processing using superconducting nanoscale circuits, such as the SCPT and the Cooper-pair-box (CPB). In the SCPT coherent charge transport can be temporarily halted due to quasiparticle tunnelling, known as quasiparticle poisoning. Quasiparticle poisoning can be reduced by the use of engineered island and lead gap energies. The thesis begins by reporting measurements of the superconducting gap in aluminium - aluminium-oxide - aluminium tunnel junctions, as a function of film thickness. We have observed an increase in the superconducting energy gap of aluminium with decreasing film thickness. This method is used to engineer the island and gap energies in a SCPT and consequently we observe reduced poisoning and a modification of the thresholds for finite bias transport processes. Radio-frequency reflectometry is used to perform high-bandwidth measurements of quasiparticle tunnelling in a gap engineered SCPT. A model for the radio-frequency (rf) operation of the SCPT is presented and shows close agreement with experiment. Thermal activation of the quasiparticle dynamics is investigated, and consequently, we are able to determine energetics of the poisoning and unpoisoning processes. This enables an effective quasiparticle temperature to be determined, allowing the poisoning to be parametrised. An investigation of the use of normal metal quasiparticle traps for suppression of quasiparticle poisoning in SCPT devices is performed. To date, there has been little quantitative information about the behaviour of quasiparticle traps even though they have been used extensively. The work presented serves to clarify the nature of quasiparticle trap performance. Finally the single-quasiparticle sensitivity of the SCPT is employed to directly probe a few quasiparticle gas in a small superconducting volume. The quasiparticle population is monitored both in the steady-state and under non-equilibrium conditions of injection. In the non-equilibrium regime the quasiparticle recombination time is accessed from the response of the SCPT to pulsed injection. Agreement to previous experimental studies of recombination times in aluminium is found.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (November 13, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Abstract not available

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Physics & Astronomy. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

At the high-temperature conditions of the Earth's interior, lattice anharmonic effects in crystalline mineral phases can become pronounced. Anharmonicity, i.e., deviations of vibrations from harmonic oscillations, is caused by phonon-phonon interactions. Knowledge of lattice anharmonicity is essential to elucidate distinctive thermal properties in solids. Yet, accurate investigations of anharmonicity encounter difficulties owing to cumbersome computations. Here we present anharmonic property calculations with the phonon quasiparticle approach for various solids. The phonon quasiparticle approach efficiently and reliably addresses lattice anharmonicity by combining molecular dynamics and lattice dynamics calculations. It characterizes anharmonic phonons by extracting renormalized frequency and phonon lifetime from the mode-projected velocity autocorrelation function without explicitly computing higher-order interatomic force constants. In principle, it accounts for full anharmonic effects and overcomes finite-size effects typical of molecular dynamics. The validity and effectiveness of the current approach are demonstrated in computations of temperature-induced frequency shifts, anharmonic thermodynamics, phase boundaries, and lattice thermal conductivities of both weakly and strongly anharmonic, both insulating and metallic, and both simple and complex systems. These materials include a simple model crystal, Si with diamond structure, minerals of geophysical significance, MgSiO₃ perovskite and postperovskite, cubic CaSiO₃ perovskite, and B8 and B2 phases of FeO. Accurate anharmonic thermodynamic properties, phase boundaries, and lattice thermal conductivities presented in this thesis are important for geodynamic modeling. The theoretical framework validated in this thesis also enables predictive studies of various anharmonic materials which could not be previously addressed by conventional approaches, such as quasiharmonic approximation for thermodynamics calculations and finite displacement method for anharmonic lattice dynamics calculations.

In this thesis, I present studies in the field of terahertz (THz) spectroscopy. These studies are divided into three areas: Development of a narrowband THz source, the study of carrier transport in metal thin films, and the exploration of coherent dynamics of quasi-particles in semiconductor nanostructures with both broadband and narrowband THz sources. The narrowband THz source makes use of type II difference frequency generation (DFG) in a nonlinear crystal to generate THz waves. By using two linearly chirped, orthogonally polarized optical pulses to drive the DFG, we were able to produce a tunable source of strong, narrowband THz radiation. The broadband source makes use of optical rectification of an ultra-short optical pulse in a nonlinear crystal to generate a single-cycle THz pulse. Linear spectroscopic measurements were taken on NiTi-alloy thin films of various thicknesses and titanium concentrations with broadband THz pulses as well as THz power transmission measurements. By applying a combination of the Drude model and Fresnel thin-film coefficients, we were able to extract the DC resistivity of the NiTi-alloy thin films. Using the narrowband source of THz radiation, we explored the exciton dynamics of semiconductor quantum wells. These dynamics were made sense of by observing time-resolved transmission measurements and comparing them to theoretical calculations. By tuning the THz photon energy near exciton transition energies, we were able to observe extreme nonlinear optical transients including the onset of Rabi oscillations. Furthermore, we applied the broadband THz waves to quantum wells embedded in a microcavity, and time-resolved reflectivity measurements were taken. Many interesting nonlinear optical transients were observed, including interference effects between the modulated polariton states in the sample. / Graduation date: 2012

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.

We study variants of P-frames and associated rings, which can be viewed as natural generalizations of the classical variants of P-spaces and associated rings. To be more precise, we de ne quasi m-rings to be those rings in which every prime d-ideal is either maximal or minimal. For a completely regular frame L, if the ring RL of real-valued continuous functions of L is a quasi m-ring, we say L is a quasi cozero complemented frame. These frames are less restricted than the cozero complemented frames. Using these frames we study some properties of what are called quasi m-spaces, and observe that the property of being a quasi m-space is inherited by cozero subspaces, dense z- embedded subspaces, and regular-closed subspaces among normal quasi m-space. M. Henriksen, J. Mart nez and R. G. Woods have de ned a Tychono space X to be a quasi P-space in case every prime z-ideal of C(X) is either minimal or maximal. We call a point I of L a quasi P-point if every prime z-ideal of RL contained in the maximal ideal associated with I is either maximal or minimal. If all points of L are quasi P-points, we say L is a quasi P-frame. This is a conservative de nition in the sense that X is a quasi P-space if and only if the frame OX is a quasi P-frame. We characterize these frames in terms of cozero elements, and, among cozero complemented frames, give a su cient condition for a frame to be a quasi P-frame. A Tychono space X is called a weak almost P-space if for every two zero-sets E and F of X with IntE IntF, there is a nowhere dense zero-set H of X such that E F [H. We present the pointfree version of weakly almost P-spaces. We de ne weakly regular rings by a condition characterizing the rings C(X) for weak almost P-spaces X. We show that a reduced f-ring is weakly regular if and only if every prime z-ideal in it which contains only zero-divisors is a d-ideal. We characterize the frames L for which the ring RL of real-valued continuous functions on L is weakly regular. We introduce the notions of boundary frames and boundary rings, and use them to give another ring-theoretic characterization of boundary spaces. We show that X is a boundary space if and only if C(X) is a boundary ring. A Tychono space whose Stone- Cech compacti cation is a nite union of closed subspaces each of which is an F-space is said to be nitely an F-space. Among normal spaces, S. Larson gave a characterization of these spaces in terms of properties of function rings C(X). By extending this notion to frames, we show that the normality restriction can actually be dropped, even in spaces, and thus we sharpen Larson's result. / Mathematics / D. Phil. (Mathematics)