Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2009. / Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until April 1, 2010. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-200)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, March, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until April 1, 2010. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-200)

Thesis (M.S.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Physics, 2008. / Adviser, Prof. Georg Bollen"--Acknowledgments. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Aug. 4, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-72). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Michael Chapman; Committee Member: Alex Kuzmich; Committee Member: Brian Kennedy; Committee Member: Chandra Raman; Committee Member: Kenneth Brown. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

No description available.

Cette thèse décrit l'étude d'une chambre de combustion innovante de type Trapped Vortex Combustor (TVC): ce concept utilise des cavités de gaz chauds pour stabiliser des flammes prémélangées pauvres. A partir d'une étude globale d'un point de fonctionnement instable, l'approche scientifique vise à différencier l'impact des différents mécanismes physiques. La structure de l'écoulement inerte est étudiée finement avant de mener une étude spatio-Temporelle sur un point de fonctionnement instable, en conditions réactives. L'analyse permet de comprendre les interactions entre la structure de la flamme, la topologie de l'écoulement et l'acoustique du brûleur. Différents mécanismes pilotant l'apparition d'instabilités de combustion sont mis en évidence, et des recommandations sont fournies afin de les supprimer. Un vérification a posteriori permet de valider l'importance de ces mécanismes, notamment grâce à la détermination de diagrammes de stabilité de flamme. / This thesis describes the investigation of an innovative trapped vortex combustor (TVC): this concept uses recirculating hot gas flow trapped in cavities to stabilize lean main flames. Based on a global investigation of an unstable operating condition, the scientific strategy aims to treat separately the different physical mechanisms. The inert flow structure is analyzed prior to leading a spatio-Temporal study on an unstable mode. This investigation aims to understand the flaine-Flow-Acoustic interactions in the combustor. Several mechanisms piloting combustion instabilities are highlighted, and recommandations are provided in order to suppress them. An a posteriori check validate the preponderance of these mechanisms, in particular with the determination of stability flaine diagrams.

This study uses Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes to fabricate 316L stainless steel beams with pockets of unfused powder for increased damping. Modal testing was completed to compare damping factors of beams with varying pocket geometries as well as number of pockets and pocket location. For the first three bending modes that were tested, an initial damping increase was observed when pocket height is greater than powder diameter. Following the initial increase there is a height threshold, which is mode dependent, that is required to achieve a statistically significant increase in damping.

Trapped-ion systems are a promising route toward the realization of both near-term and universal quantum computers. However, one of the pressing challenges is improving the fidelity of two-qubit entangling gates. These operations are often implemented by addressing individual ions with laser pulses using the M\o lmer-S\o rensen (MS) protocol. Amplitude modulation (AM) is a well-studied extension of this protocol, where the amplitude of the laser pulses is controlled as a function of time. We present an analytical study of AM using a Fourier series expansion so that the laser amplitude may be represented as a general continuous function. Varying the Fourier coefficients used to generate the pulse produces trade-offs between the laser power, gate time, and fidelity. We specifically study gate-timing errors, and we have shown that the sensitivity of the fidelity to these errors can be improved without a significant increase in the average laser power or the gate time. We plot atomic population vs. time for both the traditional MS protocol and the protocol with AM, highlighting the increased robustness of the AM gates. Our central result is that we improve the leading order dependence on gate timing errors from $\order{\Delta t^2}$ to $\order{\Delta t^6}$, and the protocol allows for arbitrarily high orders of scaling to be achieved in principle.

<P> Trapped ions are one of the best candidate systems to realize quantum computation. In our laboratory, we are trying to implement quantum computing and information processing: two hyperfine ground-states of magnesium-25 ions will serve as the two-level system to store quantum information. The ions are confined in a linear radio-frequency trap under ultra-high vacuum conditions and will be cooled down to their motional ground-states. By illuminating the ions with frequency-stabilized lasers we will be able to initialize, manipulate, and read out their internal electronic quantum states in a well-controlled way and with high fidelity. In addition, the ions can be made to interact with each other by coupling their internal electronic states to a collective vibrational mode of motion along the trap axis. In this thesis, the focus will be on the process of building a trapped-magnesium-ion quantum information processor. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The spectroscopy of wide-bandgap fluoride materials doped with divalent ytterbium is presented. The structure of impurity-trapped excitons is explored, vacuum ultraviolet excitation is used to investigate the transfer processes between excitations, and the effect of confinement on self-trapped excitons is studied. The excited-state structure of impurity-trapped excitons is measured in the multisite system NaMgF₃:Yb²⁺. A two-colour ultraviolet-infrared pulsed photoluminescence enhancement technique is employed to probe the interlevel transitions and dynamics of impurity-trapped excitons in doped insulating phosphor materials. NaMgF₃:Yb²⁺ exhibits emission from two charge-compensation centres with peaks at 22 300 cm⁻¹ (448 nm) and 24 000 cm⁻¹ (417 nm). The observed photoluminescence enhancement is caused by a combination of intra-excitonic excitation and electron trap liberation. The electron traps are inferred to have a depth of approximately 800 cm⁻¹. Time-resolved VUV spectroscopic studies of emission and excitation spectra of CaF₂:Yb, NaMgF₃Yb and MgF₂:Yb are presented to investigate excitation and relaxation mechanisms of both impurity-trapped excitons and intrinsic excitons in each fluoride host. Host-to-impurity energy transfer mechanisms leading to formation of impurity-trapped excitons are discussed. The 4f¹⁴ → 4f¹³5d CaF₂:Yb²⁺ absorption bands are successfully modeled with a semi-empirical effective Hamiltonian calculation for NaMgF₃:Yb²⁺ and MgF₂:Yb²⁺. The excitation and emission spectra of all studied materials are compared. Results on VUV spectroscopy of 3 and 5 monolayer CdF₂–CaF₂ superlattices show the change in optical behaviour of the self-trapped exciton in CdF₂ when it is confined and give an indication of the radius of the exciton. The decay of the emission is modeled with three components, corresponding to three self-trapped exciton states. Results on the VUV spectroscopy of CdF₂–CaF₂ superlattices show that the confinement effect seems to equally influence the energy of excitonic and bandgap absorption in 3 and 5 monolayer superlattices. At the same time, as the self-trapped exciton is more confined, the emission is blue-shifted by 1600 cm⁻¹ indicating that the effective excitonic radius is about three monolayers.