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The interaction of carbon monoxide molecules with atomic-scale platinum nanojunctions is investigated by low temperature mechanically controllable break junction experiments. Combining plateaus' length analysis, two dimensional…
In this thesis, we investigate the quantum mechanical interaction of light with matter in the form of a gas of ultracold atoms: the atomic ensemble. We present a theoretical analysis of two problems, which involve the interaction of…
Electrochemical methods have recently become an interesting tool for fabricating and characterizing nanostructures at room temperature. Simplicity, low cost and reversibility are some of the advantages of this technique that allows to work…
We have measured the trapping lifetime of magnetically trapped atoms in a cryogenic atom-chip experiment. An ultracold atomic cloud is kept at a fixed distance from a thin gold layer deposited on top of a superconducting trapping wire. The…
Sympathetic cooling is the process of energy exchange between a system and a colder bath. We investigate this fundamental process in an atom-ion experiment where the system is composed of a single ion, trapped in a radio-frequency Paul…
Unique electronic properties of self-organized Au atom chains on Ge(001) in novel c(8x2) long-range order are revealed by scanning tunneling microscopy. Along the nanowires an exceptionally narrow conduction path exists which is virtually…
We discuss a class of models for particulate gels in which the particle contacts are described by an effective interaction combining a two-body attraction and a three-body angular repulsion. Using molecular dynamics, we show how varying the…
Direct real time studies of reacting individual atoms in technologically important gold and platinum nanocatalysts in controlled reducing and oxidising gas environments and operating temperatures using novel environmental scanning…
Sliding friction between crystal lattices and the physics of cold ion traps are so far non-overlapping fields. Two sliding lattices may either stick and show static friction or slip with dynamic friction; cold ions are known to form static…
The validity of the linear elasticity theory is examined at the nanometer scale by investigating the vibrational properties of silver and gold nanoparticles whose diameters range from about 1.5 to 4 nm. Comparing the vibration modes…
In an accompanying paper [arxiv:2511.04488], we introduced an approach to interface trapped-ion quantum processors with ensemble-based quantum memories by matching a spontaneous parametric down conversion source to both the ions and the…
We theoretically investigate the interaction between a single molecule and a metallic nanoparticle. We develop a general quantum mechanical description for the calculation of the enhancement of radiative and non-radiative decay channels for…
We review our experiments on the electronic transport properties of atomic contacts between metallic electrodes, in particular superconducting ones. Despite ignorance of the exact atomic configuration, these ultimate quantum point contacts…
We study fluctuations in plasmonic electroluminescence at the single-atom limit profiting from the precision of a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. First, we investigate the influence of a controlled single-atom transfer on the…
We develop a general theoretical framework based on $Z$-classification to count the number of topological bound states at a junction of chiral-symmetric one-dimensional systems. The formulation applies to general multiway junctions composed…
We present a fully quantum mechanical description of a free $^6$Li atom scattering from a trapped $^{171}$Yb$^+$ ion in one dimension. By reformulating the system in polar coordinates and employing the adiabatic representation, we extract a…
We study a two-level atom in a double--well potential coupled to a continuum of electromagnetic modes (black body radiation in three dimensions at zero absolute temperature). Internal and external degrees of the atom couple due to recoil…
We consider controlled collisions between two ultracold atoms guided by external harmonic potentials. We derive analytical solutions of the Schroedinger equation for this system, and investigate the properties of eigenergies and eigenstates…
The excitation of the spin degrees of freedom of an adsorbed atom by tunneling electrons is computed using a strong coupling theory. The excitation process is shown to be a sudden switch between the initial state determined by the…
We present a novel approach to determine the onset of contact between a tip and a surface. The real contact area depending on the distance is calculated using Bader's quantum theory of atoms in molecules. The jump to contact, which is often…