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Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Herstellung und Charakterisierung von AlGaInP Quantenpunkten auf GaP und GaAs-Substrat. Auf Basis dieser Quantenpunkte wurden Halbleiterlaser auf GaAs hergestellt, welche bei Raumtemperatur zwischen 660 nm und 730 nm emittierten. Die Untersuchung von Breitstreifenlasern, welche aus diesen Strukturen gefertigt wurden, legen nahe, dass man mithilfe eines höheren Aluminiumanteils in größeren Quantenpunkten bei vergleichbarer Wellenlänge Laser mit besseren Eigenschaften realisieren kann. Weiterhin wurden in dieser Arbeit Quantenpunkten auf GaP-Substrat untersucht, welche in AlGaP eingebettet wurden. Da diese Quantenpunkte in Barrieren eingebettet sind, welche eine indirekte Bandlücke besitzen, ergibt sich ein nicht-trivialer Bandverlauf innerhalb dieser Strukturen. In dieser Arbeit wurden numerische 3D-Simulationen verwendet, um den Bandverlauf zu berechnen, wobei Verspannung und interne Felder berücksichtigt wurden und auch die Grundzustandswellenfunktionen ermittelt wurden. Ein eingehender Vergleich mit dem Experiment setzt die gemessenen Emissionswellenlängen und -intensitäten mit berechneten Übergangsenergien und Überlappintegralen in Verbindung.
The contribution of the present thesis consists of three parts. They are centered around investigating certain semiconductor heterointerfaces relevant to spin injection, exploring novel, diluted magnetic single barrier tunneling structures, and further developing diluted magnetic II-VI resonant tunneling diodes.
This thesis investigated the potential of Compressed Sensing (CS) applied to Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). CS is a novel image reconstruction method that emerged from the field of information theory. The framework of CS was first published in technical reports in 2004 by Candès and Donoho. Two years later, the theory of CS was published in a conference abstract and two papers. Candès and Donoho proved that it is possible, with overwhelming probability, to reconstruct a noise-free sparse signal from incomplete frequency samples (e.g., Fourier coefficients). Hereby, it is assumed a priori that the desired signal for reconstruction is sparse. A signal is considered “sparse“ when the number of non-zero elements is significantly smaller than the number of all elements. Sparsity is the most important foundation of CS. When an ideal noise-free signal with few non-zero elements is given, it should be understandably possible to obtain the relevant information from fewer Fourier coefficients than dictated by the Nyquist-Shannon criterion. The theory of CS is based on noise-free sparse signals. As soon as noise is introduced, no exact sparsity can be specified since all elements have signal intensities that are non-zero. However, with the addition of little or moderate noise, an approximate sparsity that can be exploited using the CS framework will still be given. The ability to reconstruct noisy undersampled sparse MRI data using CS has been extensively demonstrated. Although most MR datasets are not sparse in image space, they can be efficiently sparsified by a sparsifying transform. In this thesis, the data are either sparse in the image domain, after Discrete Gradient transformation, or after subtraction of a temporally averaged dataset from the data to be reconstructed (dynamic imaging). The aim of this thesis was to identify possible applications of CS to MRI. Two different algorithms were considered for reconstructing the undersampled sparse data with the CS concept. The Nonlinear Conjugate Gradient based technique with a relaxed data consistency constraint as suggested by Lustig et al. is termed Relaxed DC method. An alternative represents the Gradient or Steepest Descent algorithm with strict data consistency and is, therefore, termed the Strict DC method. Chapter 3 presents simulations illustrating which of these two reconstruction algorithms is best suited to recover undersampled sparse MR datasets. The results lead to the decision for the Strict DC method as reconstruction technique in this thesis. After these simulations, different applications and extensions of CS are demonstrated. Chapter 4 shows how CS benefits spectroscopic 19F imaging at 7 T, allowing a significant reduction of measurement times during in vivo experiments. Furthermore, it allows highly resolved spectroscopic 3D imaging in acceptable measurement times for in vivo applications. Chapter 5 introduces an extension of the Strict DC method called CS-CC (CS on Combined Coils), which allows efficient processing of sparse undersampled multi-coil data. It takes advantage of a concept named “Joint Sparsity“, which exploits the fact that all channels of a coil array detect the same sparse object weighted with the coil sensitivity profiles. The practical use of this new algorithm is demonstrated in dynamic radial cardiac imaging. Accurate reconstructions of cardiac motion in free breathing without ECG triggering were obtained for high undersampling factors. An Iterative GRAPPA algorithm is introduced in Chapter 6 that can recover undersampled data from arbitrary (Non-Cartesian) trajectories and works solely in the Cartesian plane. This characteristic makes the proposed Iterative GRAPPA computationally more efficient than SPIRiT. Iterative GRAPPA was developed in a preceding step to combine parallel imaging with CS. Optimal parameters for Iterative GRAPPA (e.g. number of iterations, GRAPPA kernel size) were determined in phantom experiments and verified by retrospectively undersampling and reconstructing a radial cardiac cine dataset. The synergistic combination of the coil-by-coil Strict DC CS method and Iterative GRAPPA called CS-GRAPPA is presented in Chapter 7. CS-GRAPPA allows accurate reconstruction of undersampled data from even higher acceleration factors than each individual method. It is a formulation equivalent to L1-SPIRiT but computationally more efficient. Additionally, a comparison with CS-CC is given. Interestingly, exploiting joint sparsity in CS-CC is slightly more efficient than the proposed CS-GRAPPA, a hybrid of parallel imaging and CS. The last chapter of this thesis concludes the findings presented in this dissertation. Future applications expected to benefit from CS are discussed and possible synergistic combinations with other existing MR methodologies for accelerated imaging are also contemplated.
This work deals with nonlinear optics with wavefront controlled ultra-short laser pulses. The effects studied are self-phase modulation due to filamentation of ultra-short laser pulses and high-order harmonic generation in a jet of noble gas. Additionally, a way to optimize the spectral brilliance of the high-order harmonic source is studied by measuring the spectrum and wavefront of the generated XUV beam.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging method that involves no ionizing radiation and can be used non-invasively. Another important - if not the most important - reason for the widespread and increasing use of MRI in clinical practice is its interesting and highly flexible image contrast, especially of biological tissue. The main disadvantages of MRI, compared to other widespread imaging modalities like computed tomography (CT), are long measurement times and the directly resulting high costs. In the first part of this work, a new technique for accelerated MRI parameter mapping using a radial IR TrueFISP sequence is presented. IR TrueFISP is a very fast method for the simultaneous quantification of proton density, the longitudinal relaxation time T1, and the transverse relaxation time T2. Chapter 2 presents speed improvements to the original IR TrueFISP method. Using a radial view-sharing technique, it was possible to obtain a full set of relaxometry data in under 6 s per slice. Furthermore, chapter 3 presents the investigation and correction of two major sources of error of the IR TrueFISP method, namely magnetization transfer and imperfect slice profiles. In the second part of this work, a new MRI thermometry method is presented that can be used in MRI-safety investigations of medical implants, e.g. cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). One of the major safety risks associated with MRI examinations of pacemaker and ICD patients is RF induced heating of the pacing electrodes. The design of MRI-safe (or MRI-conditional) pacing electrodes requires elaborate testing. In a first step, many different electrode shapes, electrode positions and sequence parameters are tested in a gel phantom with its geometry and conductivity matched to a human body. The resulting temperature increase is typically observed using temperature probes that are placed at various positions in the gel phantom. An alternative to this local thermometry approach is to use MRI for the temperature measurement. Chapter 5 describes a new approach for MRI thermometry that allows MRI thermometry during RF heating caused by the MRI sequence itself. Specifically, a proton resonance frequency (PRF) shift MRI thermometry method was combined with an MR heating sequence. The method was validated in a gel phantom, with a copper wire serving as a simple model for a medical implant.
Understanding the mechanisms of fragmentation within silicate melts is of great interest not only for material science, but also for volcanology, particularly regarding molten fuel coolant-interactions (MFCIs). Therefore edge-on hammer impact experiments (HIEs) have been carried out in order to analyze the fracture dynamics in well defined targets by applying a Cranz-Schardin highspeed camera technique. This thesis presents the corresponding results and provides a thorough insight into the dynamics of fragmentation, particularly focussing on the processes of energy dissipation. In HIEs two main classes of cracks can be identified, characterized by completely different fracture mechanisms: Shock wave induced “damage cracks” and “normal cracks”, which are exclusively caused by shear-stresses. This dual fracture situation is taken into account by introducing a new concept, according to which the crack class-specific fracture energies are linearly correlated with the corresponding fracture areas. The respective proportionality constants - denoted “fracture surface energy densities” (FSEDs) - have been quantified for all studied targets under various constraints. By analyzing the corresponding high speed image sequences and introducing useful dynamic parameters it has been possible to specify and describe in detail the evolution of fractures and, moreover, to quantify the energy dissipation rates during the fragmentation. Additionally, comprehensive multivariate statistical analyses have been carried out which have revealed general dependencies of all relevant fracture parameters as well as characteristics of the resulting particles. As a result, an important principle of fracture dynamics has been found, referred to as the “local anisotropy effect”: According to this principle, the fracture dynamics in a material is significantly affected by the location of directed stresses. High local stress gradients cause a more stable crack propagation and consequently a reduction of the energy dissipation rates. As a final step, this thesis focusses on the volcanological conclusions which can be drawn on the basis of the presented HIE results. Therefore fragments stemming from HIEs have been compared with natural and experimental volcanic ash particles of basaltic Grimsvötn and rhyolitic Tepexitl melts. The results of these comparative particle analyses substantiate HIEs to be a very suitable method for reproducing the MFCI loading conditions in silicate melts and prove the FSED concept to be a model which is well transferable to volcanic fragmentation processes.
Low field NMR has been successfully used for the evaluation of seed composition and quality, but largely only in crop species. We show here that 1.5T NMR provides a reliable means for analysing the seed lipid fraction present in a wide range of species, where both the seed size and lipid concentration differed by >10 fold. Little use of high field NMR has been made in seed research to date, even though it potentially offers many opportunities for studying seed development, metabolism and storage. Here we demonstrate how 17.5T and 20T NMR can be applied to image seed structure, and analyse lipid and metabolite distribution. We suggest that further technical developments in NMR/MRI will facilitate significant advances in our understanding of seed biology.
The material system of interest in this thesis are II-VI-semiconductors. The first part of this thesis focuses on the formation of self-assembled CdSe-based quantum dots (QD) on ZnSe. The lattice constants of ZnSe and CdSe differ as much as about 7\% and therefore a CdSe layer grown on top of ZnSe experiences a huge strain. The aspired strain relief constitutes in the self-assembly of QDs (i.e. a roughened layer structure). Additionally, this QD layer is intermixed with Zn as this is also a possibility to decrease the strain in the layer. For CdSe on ZnSe, in Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), various QD growth procedures were analysed with respect to the resulting Cd-content of the non-stoichiometric ternary (Zn,Cd)Se. The evaluation was performed by Raman Spectroscopy as the phonon frequency depends on the Cd-content. The second part of the thesis emphasis on the interface properties of n-ZnSe on n-GaAs. Different growth start procedures of the ZnSe epilayer may lead to different interface configurations with characteristic band-offsets and carrier depletion layer widths. The analysis is mainly focused on the individual depletion layer widths in the GaAs and ZnSe. This non-destructive analysis is performed by evaluating the Raman signal which comprises of phonon scattering from the depleted regions and coupled plasmon-phonon scattering from regions with free carriers.
The charge transport in disordered organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells is a crucial process affecting the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the solar cell. With the need of synthesizing new materials for improving the power conversion efficiency of those cells it is important to study not only the photophysical but also the electrical properties of the new material classes. Thereby, the experimental techniques need to be applicable to operating solar cells. In this work, the conventional methods of transient photoconductivity (also known as "Time-of-Flight" (TOF)), as well as the transient charge extraction technique of "Charge Carrier Extraction by Linearly Increasing Voltage" (CELIV) are performed on different organic blend compositions. Especially with the latter it is feasible to study the dynamics, i.e. charge transport and charge carrier recombination, in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells with active layer thicknesses of 100-200 nm. For a well performing organic BHJ solar cells the morphology is the most crucial parameter finding a trade-off between an efficient photogeneration of charge carriers and the transport of the latter to the electrodes. Besides the morphology, the nature of energetic disorder of the active material blend and its influence on the dynamics are discussed extensively in this work. Thereby, the material system of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM) serves mainly as a reference material system. New promising donor or acceptor materials and their potential for application in organic photovoltaics are studied in view of charge dynamics and compared with the reference system. With the need for commercialization of organic solar cells the question of the impact of environmental conditions on the PCE of the solar cells raises. In this work, organic BHJ solar cells exposed to synthetic air for finite duration are studied in view of the charge carrier transport and recombination dynamics. Finally, within the framework of this work the technique of photo-CELIV is improved. With the modified technique it is now feasible to study the mobility and lifetime of charge carriers in organic solar cells under operating conditions.
The dependence of the rate of proton–proton interactions on the centre-of-mass collision energy, √s, is of fundamental importance for both hadron collider physics and particle astrophysics. The dependence cannot yet be calculated from first principles; therefore, experimental measurements are needed. Here we present the first measurement of the inelastic proton–proton interaction cross-section at a centre-of-mass energy, √s, of 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected by requiring hits on scintillation counters mounted in the forward region of the detector. An inelastic cross-section of 60.3±2.1 mb is measured for ξ>5×10−6, where ξ is calculated from the invariant mass, MX, of hadrons selected using the largest rapidity gap in the event. For diffractive events, this corresponds to requiring at least one of the dissociation masses to be larger than 15.7 GeV.