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 ...

    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 ...

    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 ...

    Complex systems for quantum technologies 

    Braungardt, Sibylle (Date of defense: 2011-07-12)

    Control of optical fields and single photon emitters by advanced nanoantenna structures 

    Neumann, Lars (Date of defense: 2012-04-18)

    Un tema central en la ciencia y la tecnología es la exploración y explotación de sistemas cada vez más pequeños por medio de técnicas ópticas. A menudo, la longitud de onda viene dictada por el sistema de interés: los ...

    Development of novel imaging tools for selected biomedical applications 

    Olarte, Omar E. (Date of defense: 2014-03-20)

    In the quest for better and faster images of cellular and subcellular structures, biology-oriented optical microscopes have advanced significantly in the last few decades. Novel microscopy techniques such as non-linear ...

    High-power, fiber-laser-pumped optical parametric oscillators from the visible to mid-infrared 

    Chaitanya Kumar, Suddapalli (Date of defense: 2012-01-18)

    High-power, continuous-wave (cw), mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser sources are of interest for variety of applications such as trace gas detection and remote sensing, which require broad spectral coverage to address the most ...

    Intrinsic randomness in non-local theories: quantification and amplification 

    Dhara, Chirag (Date of defense: 2013-06-12)

    Quantum mechanics was developed as a response to the inadequacy of classical physics in explaining certain physical phenomena. While it has proved immensely successful, it also presents several features that severely ...

    Mechanisms and functions of the nucleus as a mechano-controller of cell contractility and migration plasticity 

    Venturini, Valeria (Date of defense: 2022-04-08)

    Living tissues are crowded and dynamic environments, in which signalling molecules and physical forces constantly act on single cells. To ensure correct tissue development and homeostasis, cells function like small processors: ...

    Nanoscale Coherent Control. Ultrafast dynamics of single molecules, individual light harvesting complexes and discrete nanoantennas at room temperature. 

    Brinks, Daan (Date of defense: 2012-10-19)

    Ultrafast pulses allow observation of molecular dynamics with femtosecond time resolution through pump probe experiments. However, averaging over an ensemble of molecules tends to wash out phase sensitive information, ...

    Nanoscale spatial control of light in optical antennas 

    Volpe, Giorgio (Date of defense: 2012-05-10)

    El control dinámico y determinístico de la luz en una escala espacial por debajo de la longitud de onda es un requisito clave para ampliar los conceptos y las funcionalidades de la macro-óptica hasta la escala nanométrica. ...

    Nonlocality in multipartite correlation networks 

    Würflinger, Lars Erik (Date of defense: 2013-09-18)

    Despite the success of quantum mechanics in predicting the outcomes of experiments in many branches of physics, the foundations of the theory have remained subject of research and dispute. At the basis of this struggle ...

    Optical antennas control light emission 

    González Curto, Alberto (Date of defense: 2013-07-16)

    The emission of light is at the heart of both fundamental science and technological applications. At its origin lie electronic transitions in nanoscale materials such as molecules, atoms and semiconductors. The interaction ...

    Photon control in nano-structured organic photovoltaic materials 

    Betancur Lopera, Rafael (Date of defense: 2013-07-10)

    Organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology has emerged as a potential cost-effective solution to produce electrical energy. The foreseen low manufacturing costs combined with features as semi-transparency or mechanical flexibility ...

    Quantifying randomness from Bell nonlocality 

    Bourdoncle, Boris (Date of defense: 2019-02-13)

    The twentieth century was marked by two scientific revolutions. On the one hand, quantum mechanics questioned our understanding of nature and physics. On the other hand, came the realisation that information could be treated ...

    Quantum Brownian motion in Bose-Einstein condensates 

    Charalambous, Christos (Date of defense: 2020-01-31)

    Quantum Brownian motion is one of the most prominent examples of an open quantum system, a system which cannot be treated in isolation from its environment. The simplest method to study the dynamics of a system undergoing ...

    Spatiotemporal organisation of protein nanoclusters in adhesion complexes 

    Keary, Sarah (Date of defense: 2022-02-28)

    The main goal of this thesis was to contribute to the understanding of the nanoscale lateral organisation of key proteins in adhesion complexes. For this, we exploited single molecule localisation-based super-resolution ...

    Unravelling motor protein organization on lysosomal membranes with super-resolution microscopy 

    Cordier, Guillaume (Date of defense: 2018-04-03)

    This thesis first develops new methods for high-throughput and multi-color super-resolution microscopy (Chapters 2 and 3). Subsequently, I apply these methods to study the organization of motor proteins on the lysosome ...