It is well known from Mermin-Wagner theorem that a two dimensional(2D) system with continuous symmetry can have no long-range order at finite temperature. However such systems can undergo a transition from a low temperature phase with quasi-long range order to a disordered phase at high temperatures. This is known as Berezinskii Kosterlitz Thouless (BKT) transition. The BKT transition is characterized by the presence of bound vortex pairs at low temperature which dissociate into free vortices above the critical temperature and has been observed in thin superconducting films, 2D superfluids, 2D liquid crystals etc. In this thesis work, we have used resistance/current fluctuations (low frequency/shotnoise) as a probe to investigate the BKT transition in different 2D systems. This work can be divided into three parts: In the first part, we probe the ground state of interacting electrons in 2D in the presence of disorder. We show that at low enough temperatures (~ 270mK),the conductivity tends to zero at a nonzero carrier density with a BKT-like transition. Our experiments with many two dimensional electron systems in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures suggest that the charge transport at low carrier densities is due to the melting of an underlying ordered ground state through proliferation of topological defects. Independent measurement of low-frequency conductivity noise supports this scenario. In the second part, we probe the presence of long-range correlations in phase fluctuations by analyzing the higher-order spectrum of resistance fluctuations in ultrathin NbN superconducting films. The non-Gaussian component of resistance fluctuations is found to be sensitive to film thickness close to the transition, which allows us to distinguish between mean field and BKT type superconducting transitions. The extent of non-Gaussianity was found to be bounded by the BKT and mean field transition temperatures and depends strongly on the roughness and structural inhomogeneity of the superconducting films. In the final part of the thesis, we explore the transport mechanism in disordered 2D superconductors using shot noise. The resistivity shows an activated transport in the patterned ultrathin films of NbN at low temperatures signifying the presence of large scale inhomogeneities in the sample. The measurement of current fluctuations yield a giant excess noise at low temperatures which eventually decreases below the measurement background at a temperature corresponding to the normal state of the original sample(before patterning). We attribute the enhancement in the shot noise to a possible occurrence of multiple Andreev reflections occurring in a network of SNS(superconductor-normal-superconductor) junctions formed due to the interplay of disorder and superconducting fluctuations.

Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation wird die Kopplung von einer ultraschnellen optischen Interband-Anregung und der Erzeugung von akustischen Phononen im ferroelektrischen Prototyp-Material Lithiumniobat (LiNbO3) studiert. Unter Verwendung der Anrege-Abfrage-Technik wird LiNbO3 mit ultrakurzen optischen Lichtimpulsen angeregt und die Antwort des LiNbO3-Kristallgitters mit harten Femtosekunden-Röntgenimpulsen abgefragt. Zur Erzeugung der ultrakurzen Röntgenimpulse (100 fs) wird eine kompakte, lasergetriebene Femtosekunden-Röntgenquelle mit einer 1 kHz Repetitionsrate genutzt. Die Stärke und die zeitliche Evolution der beobachteten integralen Röntgen-Reflektivität ausgewählter Bragg-Reflexionen ist charakteristisch für die Propagation von starken akustischen Deformationswellen in einem homogen angeregten Einkristall. Überraschenderweise weisen sowohl die Polarisation als auch die Propagationsgeschwindigkeit der aktivierten Phononmoden eine hohe Anisotropie in Abhängigkeit der Ausrichtung der ferroelektrischen Achse relativ zur Polarisation der optischen Anrege-Impulse auf. Die bekannten Kopplungsmechanismen, wie das elektronische Deformationspotential oder die anharmonische Phonon-Phonon-Wechselwirkung, sind zur Erklärung der akustischen Deformationswellen mit der beobachteten Amplitude und der hohen Anisotropie ungeeignet. Stattdessen konnte gezeigt werden, dass die impulsive mechanische Spannung über den piezoelektrischen Effekt erzeugt wird. Die dafür notwendige makroskopische elektrische Polarisation resultiert aus einem photoinduzierten Verschiebestrom, welcher die Folge der optischen Interband-Anregung mittels Zwei-Photonen-Absorption ist. Diese optisch-elektrisch-mechanische Kopplung zwischen dem nichtlinearen Leitfähigkeitstensor fünfter Ordnung, dem piezoelektrischen Tensor und den relevanten Phononmoden ermöglicht eine vollkommene Beschreibung der experimentellen Beobachtungen. / The coupling between an ultrafast optical interband excitation and the generation of acoustic phonons in the ferroelectric prototype material lithium niobate (LiNbO3) is studied. Employing the pump-probe technique, LiNbO3 is excited optically with ultrashort light pulses while the impact on the crystal lattice is probed by femtosecond hard x-ray pulses. A compact, laser-driven femtosecond x-ray source with a 1-kHz repetition rate provides 100-fs pulses for time-resolved experiments. With this experimental arrangement, the response of the LiNbO3 crystal lattice to a nonlinear optical excitation can be investigated. The strength and temporal evolution of the observed integrated x-ray reflectivity of selected Bragg reflections are consistent with the propagation of a strong acoustic strain wave in a homogeneously excited single crystal. Surprisingly, both the polarization of the activated phonon modes and the propagation velocity show a high anisotropy as a function of the ferroelectric axis orientation relative to the polarization of the optical excitation pulses. The previously known coupling mechanisms, such as the electronic deformation potential or the anharmonic phonon-phonon interaction, are insufficient to explain the observed deformation amplitude and high anisotropy of the acoustic strain waves. Instead, it is shown that the impulsive mechanical stress is generated via the piezoelectric effect. The required macroscopic electrical polarization is a result of a photoinduced shift current, which in turn is generated by the optical interband excitation via two-photon absorption. This optical-electrical-mechanical coupling between the fifth-order nonlinear conductivity tensor, the piezoelectric tensor, and the relevant phonon modes fully describe the experimental observations.

The quantum properties of matter waves, in particular quantum correlations and entanglement are an important frontier in atom optics with applications in quantum metrology and quantum information. In this thesis, we report the first observation of sub-Poissonian fluctuations in the magnetization of a spinor 87Rb condensate. The fluctuations in the magnetization are reduced up to 10 dB below the classical shot noise limit. This relative number squeezing is indicative of the predicted pair-correlations in a spinor condensate and lay the foundation for future experiments involving spin-squeezing and entanglement measurements. We have investigated the limits of the imaging techniques used in our lab, absorption and fluorescence imaging, and have developed the capability to measure atoms numbers with an uncertainly < 10 atoms. Condensates as small as ≈ 10 atoms were imaged and the measured fluctuations agree well with the theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we implement a reliable calibration method of our imaging system based on quantum projection noise measurements. We have resolved the individual lattice sites of a standing-wave potential created by a CO2 laser, which has a lattice spacing of 5.3 µm. Using microwaves, we site-selectively address and manipulate the condensate and therefore demonstrate the ability to perturb the lattice condensate of a local level. Interference between condensates in adjacent lattice sites and lattice sites separated by a lattice site are observed.

Submitted by Viviane Lima da Cunha (viviane@biblioteca.ufpb.br) on 2016-05-02T10:49:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1791577 bytes, checksum: ecd7a6eb8a18230d0145c24932d9e248 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-02T10:49:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 1791577 bytes, checksum: ecd7a6eb8a18230d0145c24932d9e248 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-03 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / The Hanbury Brown-Twiss experiment is very well established in quantum optics literature, so we devoted this dissertation in order to embed the parity and temporal reversal symmetry in the former experiment. Therefore, we developed the scattering matrix formalism which allow us use some techniques such as the scattering matrices' concatenation of di erent sections in terms of one matrix and the scattering problem of a parity and temporal reverse symmetric system. In this manner, we could derive the scattering matrix of a parity and temporal reverse symmetric Hanbury Brown- Twiss experiment(HBT-PT). With the possession of this matrix, we proposed a theoretical model which provides how to measure the symmetry of this system, which we called correlation functions formalism. In order to stablish the former formalism, we studied B uttiker formalism, which we veri ed how the correlation between 2 incident particles in a system relates to the noise due transport of this particles and what kind of noise we are treating in a given regime which the system is operating. Then, we found the input states in terms of the output states of two particles inciding in a multiterminal system, which we used it's scattering matrix to stablish the relation between the states. Thereat, we derived all the possibles correlations(therefore, the noise) of two incident particles in the former system. Thereby, we analysed the extreme cases of a barrier coupled to the HBT-PT experiment for the purpose of stablish which regime the experiment is symmetric adjusted, so, demonstrating the Hanbury Brown-Twiss E ect with parity and temporal reverse symmetries. / Sendo o experimento Hanbury Brown-Twiss bem estabelecido na literatura da otica quântica, dedicamos esta dissertação a embutir no mesmo experimento a questão da simetria por paridade e reversão temporal. Para tanto, abrimos mão do formalismo da matriz de espalhamento que permitiu nos utilizar tecnicas como a concatenação de matrizes de espalhamento de sec ções diferentes em termos de apenas uma matriz e o problema do espalhamento em um sistema simétrico por paridade e reversão temporal. Dessa forma, pudemos derivar a matriz de espalhamento para o experimento Hanbury Brown-Twiss com simetria de paridade e revers~ao temporal(HBT-PT). De posse dessa matriz, propusemos um modelo teórico que propicia a medição experimental a simetria desse sistema, o qual chamamos de formalismo das fun c~oes de correla c~ao. Para estabelecermos o formalismo supracitado, estudamos o formalismo de Buttiker, onde veri case como a correlaçãao entre 2 partículas incidentes em um sistema relaciona-se com o ru do devido ao transporte dessas part culas e que tipo de ru do estamos tratando, dado o regime em que o sistema está operando. Em seguida, encontramos os estados de entrada em termos dos estados de saída de 2 partículas incidindo em um sistema multiterminal, onde utilizamos a sua matriz de espalhamento para estabelecer a rela c~ao entre os estados. Com isso, derivamos todas as possíveis correlações (e, por conseguinte, o ruído) de 2 partículas incidentes nesse sistema. Assim, analisamos os casos extremos de uma barreira acoplada ao experimento HBT-PT, a m de estabelecer o regime em que o experimento está simetricamente ajustado e demonstramos o Efeito Hanbury Brown-Twiss por paridade e reversão temporal.

The master’s thesis deals with the noise diagnostic in the solar cells. Describes the main kinds of noises. The samples were quality and reliability screened using noise reliability indicators. The samples were surveyed by measuring the I-V characteristics, the noise spectral density as a function of forward voltage and frequency. It was calculated the noise spectral density as a function of forward current.