Failure mechanisms in lithium silicon batteries

Lithium silicon (Li-Si) batteries offer more than ten times the theoretical specific capacity compared to current lithium ion battery technologies, by using a silicon anode. In practice however, the cycle life of Li-Si batteries is very limited. The large volume change of the silicon anode is known to be the main reason for this. Research on the...

Data analysis of measurements on the detection of Josephson radiation

In this report an overview of the techniques used to perform measurements on a Josephson radiation detector is given. This experiment could lead to the observation of Majorana bound states, which can be used to realize a topological quantum computer. Software for the plotting of data from one- and two-variable measurements was developed, with...

Imaging the mode shapes of microdrum resonators

A setup was built to measure the local frequency response of (graphene) microdrums in order to image mode shapes. To this end, a laser interferometer that measures the local deflection of a microdrum was equipped with a very precisely movable sample stage. The setup was used to image the mode shapes of a single few layer graphene microdrum,...

The Kernel Polynomial Method applied to tight binding systems with time-dependence

The Kernel Polynomial Method (KPM) is a method to approximate any function as a polynomial of finite order. In this research the KPM will be used to approximate the density of states and expectation values of physical observables in a tight binding system. To be able to use the KPM a tight binding Hamiltonian is obtained by using the python...

Markovian Approximations to the Time Evolution of Lead Coupled Spinless Hubbard Chains through Different Master Equation Approaches

This thesis describes the process of deriving the Master Equation for the time evolution of the density operator for a lead coupled spinless Hubbard chain using a Markov approximation. The derivation is done in a direct, conventional way of expanding operators and switching pictures in order to separate the system Hamiltonian in a convenient way...

Investigation of the Inelastic Tunneling Current for Electron Tunneling Spectroscopy on a Chain of Magnetic Atoms

The aim of this report is to investigate the inelastic tunneling current that would be measured during an inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy experiment performed on a one dimensional chain of magnetic atoms. A chain consisting of n magnetic iron atomswith spin 2 has been examined. The spins of the iron atoms in the chain have been treated...

Driven Liouville-von Neumann equation for time-dependent transport problems

Electronic devices are downsizing at a rapid pace and since the 1990s, single molecules have been studied as candidates for such devices. This thesis focusses on a new approach to simulate the electric current through these molecular devices. We followed the approach of Hod [17], which is based on the time propagation of the density matrix and...

Computation of Landau Levels and Shubnikov-de Haas Oscillations in Quantum Heterostructures

We develop a computational method that can efficiently simulate Landau levels in quantum heterostructures, by reducing the problems dimensionality. We then apply this to a GaSb/InAs/AlSb broken gap quantum well in the trivial and inverted regimes. This heterostructure can be tuned into a 2DTI phase, and has possible applications in topological...

Qubits quantum state transfer through coupled single mode resonators

Towards Secure Quantum Cloud Computing through NV-center enabled MDI-QKD

Submicron Kinetic Inductance Detectors for SAFARI: Improving MKID sensitivity through width reduction

Spectroscopic observations of a large number of galaxies in the far-infrared are critical in the study of galaxy evolution. These observations are difficult at the moment, because of the lack of good far-infrared (FIR) detector technology. Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are showing promising results to fill this void. A common...

Majorana fermions in well aligned InSb-nanowires with superconducting and normal contacts

In this Master thesis I report results on a route to find Majorana fermions in indium antimonide nanowires in contact with a superconductor. Theoretically Majorana fermions appear in one-dimensional nanowires with strong spin-orbit coupling, in proximity with a superconductor and an external magnetic field applied parallel to the nanowire. The...