ANNUAL REPORT 2005 - Universiteit Utrecht

ANNUAL REPORT 20053 PhD programmeon the properties of the external environment. In both cases, the statistics of thisvariable behaviour can be expressed in the so-called metastate formalism, which givesprobability distributions on the different global characteristics.Schouten, H.F. (VUA)thesis title: Light transmission through sub-wavelength aperturesadvisor: prof. dr. D. Lenstradate: 22 November 2005 (cum laude)present position: high school teacher, Sint-Nicolaas Lyceum, Amsterdam, the NetherlandsIn this thesis, the light transmission through sub-wavelength apertures is studied.Contrary to most studies, we will take into account both the finite thickness andfinite conductivity of the metal plate, by making use of a rigorous Green’s tensormethod. The influence of several parameters such as the slit width, the plate thickness,the material properties of the plate and the polarization of the incident field arediscussed. For the explanation of the results the concepts of guided modes inside theslit and phase singularities of the Poynting vector are used. Another topic addressedin this thesis is the light transmission through two apertures, with the aim of clarifyingthe role of surface plasmons in the interaction between the two apertures. Theresults are explained by a heuristic model involving the local excitation of surfaceplasmons at the slits. The results are important for optical recording and near-fieldoptical microscopy.Tajic, A. (UL)thesis title: Study of a stroboscopic model of a quantum dotadvisor: prof. dr. C.W.J. Beenakkerdate: 12 May 2005present position: senior scientist, NXP Semiconductors, Eindhoven, the NetherlandsMesoscopic systems are intermediate between the macroscopic world of classical mechanicsand the microscopic world of quantum mechanics. These two worlds come togetherin the study of quantum chaos, which is the search for quantum mechanicalsignatures of classically chaotic dynamics. In this thesis we investigate the quantumto-classicalcrossover in a class of chaotic systems called “quantum dots”, using anumerical method called “stroboscopic”.Temürhan, M. (UvA)thesis title: Random matrices in topological string theoryadvisor: prof. dr. R.H. Dijkgraafdate: 28 October 2005present position: postdoctoral fellow, VU Brussels, BelgiumIn this thesis the theory of random matrices is studied together with topological stringtheory. It has been mostly motivated by the Dijkgraaf-Vafa conjecture, which makesa connection between topological string theory and large N random matrix models,