This text on the electrical, optical, magnetic, and thermal properties of materials stresses concepts rather than mathematical formalism. Suitable for advanced undergraduates, it is intended for materials and electrical engineers who want to gain a fundamental understanding of alloys, semiconductor devices, lasers, magnetic materials, and so forth. The book is organized to be used in a one-semester course; to that end each section of applications, after the introduction to the fundamentals...

This book entitled “Laser Additive Manufacturing of High-Performance Materials” covers the specific aspects of laser additive manufacturing of high-performance new materials components based on an unconventional materials incremental manufacturing philosophy, in terms of materials design and preparation, process control and optimization and theories of physical and chemical metallurgy. This book describes the capabilities and characteristics of the development of new metallic materials com...

This thesis presents various characteristics of 122-type iron pnictide (FeSC) such as crystal and electronic structure, carrier-doping effect, and impurity-scattering effect, using transport, magnetization, specific heat, single-crystal X-ray diffraction, and optical spectral measurements. Most notably the measurement on the magnetic fluctuation in the material successfully explains already known unusual electronic properties, i.e., superconducting gap symmetry, anisotropy of in-plane resi...

The many-body-theoretical basis and applications of theoretical spectroscopy of condensed matter, e.g. crystals, nanosystems, and molecules are unified in one advanced text for readers from graduate students to active researchers in the field. The theory is developed from first principles including fully the electron-electron interaction and spin interactions. It is based on the many-body perturbation theory, a quantum-field-theoretical description, and Green's functions. The important exp...

In this thesis, magnetism and transport phenomena in spin-charge coupled systems on frustrated lattices are theoretically investigated, focusing on Ising-spin Kondo lattice models and using a combination of Monte Carlo simulation and other techniques such as variational calculations and perturbation theory. The emphasis of the study is on how the cooperation of spin-charge coupling and geometrical frustration affects the thermodynamic properties of the Kondo lattice models; it presents the...

This course-based primer provides newcomers to the field with a concise introduction to some of the core topics in the emerging field of topological insulators.The aim is to provide a basic understanding of edge states, bulk topological invariants, and of the bulk--boundary correspondence with as simple mathematical tools as possible.The present approach uses noninteracting lattice models of topological insulators, building gradually on these to arrive from the simplest one...

This thesis provides unique information on the Kerr-lens mode-locking (KLM) technique applied to a thin-disk laser. It describes in detail cavity geometry, the qualitative approach to KLM, and self-starting behavior in the regime of both negative and positive dispersion. Comprehensive comparative analysis of KLM and semiconductor saturable absorber techniques is also carried out. Recent successful experiments on carrier-envelope phase stabilization, spectral broadening and compression of o...

In this thesis, the pseudogap and the precursor superconducting state, which are of great importance in clarifying the superconductivity mechanism in high-temperature cuprate superconductors, are investigated with a c-axis optical study in YBa2(Cu1-xZnx)3Oy. Testing was performed over a wide energy range with smaller temperature intervals for several Zn-substituted samples, as well as for several carrier-doping levels.A spectral weight (SW) analysis, in which the pseudogap...

In this book, a modern unified theory of dispersion forces on atoms and bodies is presented which covers a broad range of different aspects and scenarios. Macroscopic quantum electrodynamics is applied within the context of dispersion forces. In contrast to the normal-mode quantum electrodynamics traditionally used to study dispersion forces, the new approach allows to consider realistic material properties including absorption and is flexible enough to be applied to a broad range of geome...

This book provides a state-of-the art overview of a highly interesting emerging research field in solid state physics/nanomaterials science, topological structures in ferroic materials. Topological structures in ferroic materials have received strongly increasing attention in the last few years. Such structures include domain walls, skyrmions and vortices, which can form in ferroelectric, magnetic, ferroelastic or multiferroic materials. These topological structures can have completely dif...

This book presents an overview of material-specific factors that influence Tc and give rise to diverse Tc values for copper oxides and iron-based high- Tc superconductors on the basis of more than 25 years of experimental data, to most of which the author has made important contributions. The book then explains why both compounds are distinct from others with similar crystal structure and whether or not one can enhance Tc, which in turn gives a hint on t...