Now showing items 1-20 of 241

    A versatile system for the study of light-matter interactions at the level of individual particles 

    Bianchet, Lorena Cecilia (Date of defense: 2022-02-25)

    In this thesis, a single-atom trap in a "Maltese cross'' geometry (MCG) was designed, built up and characterized. A MCG atom trap uses four in-vacuum lenses to achieve four-directional high-numerical-aperture optical ...

    Active control of surface plasmons in hybrid nanostructures 

    Randhawa, Sukanya (Date of defense: 2012-12-04)

    Plasmonics nanostructures are becoming remarkably important as tools towards manipulating photons at the nanoscale. They are poised to revolutionize a wide range of applications ranging from integrated optical circuits, ...

    Advanced single molecule fluorescent tools to reveal spatiotemporal multi-molecular interactions in living cells 

    Mateos Estévez, Nicolás (Date of defense: 2023-04-28)

    (English) The spatiotemporal organisation and compartmentalisation of molecules in living cells is crucial to regulate cell function. Dysregulation in how molecules dynamically explore their environment and interact with ...

    All optical manipulation of a single nitrogen-vacancy centre in nanodiamond 

    Geiselmann, Michael Wolfgang (Date of defense: 2014-04-10)

    The efficient interaction of photons with single quantum emitters like nitrogen vacancy (NV) centres is essential for the elaboration of future integrated quantum optical devices. A promising strategy towards this goal ...

    Anomalous diffusion : from life to machines 

    Muñoz Gil, Gorka (Date of defense: 2020-11-09)

    Diffusion refers to numerous phenomena, by which particles and bodies of all kinds move throughout any kind of material, has emerged as one of the most prominent subjects in the study of complex systems. Motivated by the ...

    Atomic imaging of complex molecular 

    Liu, Xinyao (Date of defense: 2022-07-27)

    One of the significant challenges of modern science is to track and image chemical reactions as they occur. The molecular movies, the precise spatiotemporal tracking of changes in their molecular dynamics, will provide a ...

    Atomic quantum metrology with narrowband entangled and squeezed states of light 

    Wolfgramm, Florian (Date of defense: 2012-06-29)

    The use of light, especially of laser light, is in many cases the most sensitive way to perform measurements. However, the highest sensitivity that can be achieved with laser light as probe is bounded by the standard quantum ...

    Attosecond soft X-ray absorption revealing the ultrafast non-adiabatic dynamics of furan 

    Severino, Stefano (Date of defense: 2023-03-13)

    (English) One of the fundamental goals of the physical chemistry community has always been to be able to follow the details of the evolution of chemical reactions in real-time. Besides the extreme temporal resolution ...

    Attosecond X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy in condensed matter 

    Buades, Bárbara (Date of defense: 2018-07-31)

    Attoscience aims to study electron dynamics in matter with unprecedented temporal resolution by using the shortest pulses generated on Earth. Currently, such resolution is only provided by sources that deliver attosecond ...

    Bell inequalities for device-independent protocols 

    Salavrakos, Alexia (Date of defense: 2019-03-26)

    The technological era that we live in is sometimes described as the Information Age. Colossal amounts of data are generated every day and considerable effort is put into creating technologies to process, store and transmit ...

    Bound states in the continuum in planar anisotropic structures 

    Mukherjee, Samyobrata (Date of defense: 2021-10-05)

    Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are modes that remain radiationless though they exist in the part of the spectrum that corresponds to radiating waves. They are a general wave phenomenon and following initial theoretical ...

    Cavity optomechanics with optically trapped particles 

    Mestres Junqué, Pau (Date of defense: 2017-09-07)

    Optical trapping and manipulation have emerged as powerful tools to investigate single microscopic objects in a controlled environment. Using the momentum carried by light, forces can be exerted to confine and manipulate ...

    Certification of many-body systems 

    Baccari, Flavio (Date of defense: 2019-05-17)

    Quantum physics is arguably both the most successful and the most counterintuitive physical theory of all times. Its extremely accurate predictions on the behaviour of microscopic particles have led to unprecedented ...

    Characterizing and witnessing multipartite correlations : from nonlocality to contextuality 

    Sainz, Ana Belén (Date of defense: 2014-02-10)

    In the past century, experimental discoveries have witnessed phenomena in Nature which challenge our everyday classical intuition. In order to explain these facts, quantum theory was developed, which so far has been able ...

    Characterizing entanglement and quantum correlations constrained by symmetry 

    Tura i Brugués, Jordi (Date of defense: 2015-07-20)

    Entanglement and nonlocal correlations constitute two fundamental resources for quantum information processing, as they allow for novel tasks that are otherwise impossible in a classical scenario. However, their elusive ...

    Charge carrier dynamics and interfaces in perovskite solar cells 

    Rueda Delgado, Diana Paola (Date of defense: 2019-07-30)

    Organometal halide perovskites for solar cells are hybrid semiconductors that recently have caught the attention of the scientific community due to its excellent performance and attractive optical properties. Since then, ...

    Classical and quantum aspects of the optical response at the nanoscale 

    Martínez Saavedra, José Ramón (Date of defense: 2018-12-10)

    Nanophotonics is one of today’s basic sciences and technologies: an in-depth understanding of the interaction between light and matter on the nano-scale, besides its intrinsic associated scientific interest, enables the ...

    Coherent control of nonlinear optical processes in individual nanoparticles 

    Accanto, Nicolò (Date of defense: 2016-06-16)

    Nanophotonics aims to understand and control the interaction of light-matter at the nanometer scale. Boosted by the development of nanotechnology and nanofabrication, nanophotonics is a thriving research field, with ...

    Coherent sensing of magnetic waveforms with spin-squeezed atoms 

    Martin Ciurana, Ferran (Date of defense: 2017-12-14)

    Optical magnetometers use magnetically-sensitive atomic ensembles and optical read-out to detect the amplitude of magnetic fields. They have become the most sensitive instruments for measuring low-frequency magnetic fields ...

    A cold-atom approach to topological quantum matter across the energy scale 

    González Cuadra, Daniel (Date of defense: 2020-12-11)

    The outstanding progress achieved in the last decades to isolate and manipulate individual quantum systems has revolutionized the way in which quantum many-body phenomena, appearing across Nature's different energy scales, ...