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Condensed Matter Physics Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Condensed Matter Physics

Probing Symmetry And Disorder Effects In The Fractional Quantum Hall States Of The Second Landau Level, Ethan I. Kleinbaum Aug 2016

Probing Symmetry And Disorder Effects In The Fractional Quantum Hall States Of The Second Landau Level, Ethan I. Kleinbaum

Open Access Dissertations

Electrons confined to two dimensions, cooled to cryogenic temperatures, and placed in a strong perpendicular magnetic field exhibit a set of ground states referred to as the fractional quantum Hall states (FQHS). The FQHSs forming in the region called the second Landau level are some of the most exciting states as several theories predict that they are very different from the well understood FQHS in the lowest Landau level. Nonetheless, the nature of these FQHSs continue to evade understanding. In this thesis, a unique ultra-low temperature setup is used to examine the FQHSs of the second Landau level in regimes …


Photovoltaics: An Investigation Into The Origins Of Efficiency On All Scales, Jeremy Alexander Bannister Jan 2016

Photovoltaics: An Investigation Into The Origins Of Efficiency On All Scales, Jeremy Alexander Bannister

Senior Projects Spring 2016

This project is comprised of a set of parallel investigations, which share the common mo- tivation of increasing the efficiency of photovoltaics. First, the reader is introduced to core concepts of photovoltaic energy conversion via a semi-classical description of the phys- ical system. Second, a key player in photovoltaic efficiency calculations, the exciton, is discussed in greater quantum mechanical detail. The reader will be taken through a nu- merical derivation of the low-energy exciton states in various geometries, including a line segment, a circle and a sphere. These numerical calculations are done using Mathematica, a computer program which, due to …