Deals with the exploration of phononic properties of meso- and nanostructured colloid-based composite materials at hypersonic (GHz) frequencies. This thesis includes the emerging field of phononics, the mechanical analogue of photonics, treats the propagation and manipulation of acoustic waves in structured materials.

Our department nominated this thesis for a Springer award because we regard it as an outstanding piece of work, carried out with a remarkable level of independence. Andreas Rost joined us in 2005, as one of the inaugural Prize Students of the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance. Our research group has been working on Sr Ru O, in collaboration with our colleagues in the group of Professor Y. Maeno 3 2 7 at Kyoto, since 1998. By early 2005 we had tantalising evidence that a novel phase was forming at very low temperatures, in an overall phase diagram dominated by quantum ?uctuations. We knew...

One of the major challenges in current chemistry is to ?nd molecules able to move charges rapidly and ef?ciently from, for example, one terminus to another one under the control of an external electrical, electrochemical or photochemical stimulus. Nature has provided impressive examples of how these goals are achieved. The photosynthetic reaction center protein, for instance, rapidly moves electrons with near unity quantum ef?ciency across a lipid bilayer membrane using several redox cofactors, and thus, serves as a model for developing biomimetic analogues for applications in ?elds such as...

The functionalization of surfaces on the nanoscale is one of the most fascinating and at the same time challenging topics in science. It is the key to tailoring catalysts, sensors, or devices for solar energy conversion, whose functional principle is based on the interaction of an active solid surface with another (liquid or gaseous) phase. As an example, planar transition metal complexes adsorbed on solid supports are promising candidates for novel heterogeneous catalysts. An important feature of these catalysts, compared to supported metal clusters, is the fact that the active sites, i. e.,...

While the problem of conventional, low-temperature superconductivity has long been considered solved, accurate predictions of superconductor properties are difficult to come by. This volume describes the development and implementation of a new experimental method that sheds new light on this problem.

Laser-driven proton beams are still in their infancy but already have some outstanding attributes compared to those produced in conventional accelerators. One such attribute is the typically low beam emittance. This allows excellent resolution in imaging applications like proton radiography. This thesis describes a novel imaging technique - the proton streak camera - that the author developed and first used to measure both the spatial and temporal evolution of ultra-strong electrical fields in laser-driven plasmas. Such investigations are of paramount importance for the understanding of...

The framework of Gaussian Approximation Potentials developed in this thesis allows us to generate interatomic potentials automatically, based on quantum mechanical data. The method has already been successfully applied to semiconductors and metals.

The main pacemakers of scienti?c research are curiosity, ingenuity, and a pinch of persistence. Equipped with these characteristics a young researcher will be s- cessful in pushing scienti?c discoveries. And there is still a lot to discover and to understand. In the course of understanding the origin and structure of matter it is now known that all matter is made up of six types of quarks. Each of these carry a different mass. But neither are the particular mass values understood nor is it known why elementary particles carry mass at all. One could perhaps accept some small generic mass value...

This thesis deals with delay effects in nonlinear systems, which feature in various fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and even in social and economic systems. It covers both the instabilities arising from time delay and their suppression.