ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would first like to thank my advisor, Prof. Kevin J. Chen, who guided me through my Ph. D. study. Without his help and support, I could not have this opportunity to come to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. During the past three and a half years, I had learnt a great deal from him, especially the relentless pursuit in understanding the most fundamental mechanisms and providing intuitive explanations to seemingly complex problems. I also would like to thank my thesis defense committee members, Prof. Kei May Lau, Prof. Andrew W. O. Poon, Prof. Lilong Cai, and Prof. Quan Xue for their support and feedback. Among all the members of Prof. Chen’s group that I have had the privilege to work with, the first one that I would like to thank is Dr. Jinwen Zhang. She is the one who guides me through the fabrication process of my first research project. I enjoyed working with her and learned many hands-on skills about microfabrication from her. Her dedication to the quality of the work is one thing that I hope I never forget. Although all of the works presented in this dissertation have been done out of the clean-rooms, I have to say that I learned how to do research during the time spent on the microfabrications. Mr. Kwok Wai Chan is the next person that I am indebted to. He helped me to get familiar with the microwave measurements, which are not as simple as they look. For this matter, Dr. Lydia L. W. Leung is also to be recognized for many valuable discussions about the measurement problems and other questions. Her intuitions about the essentials of various complex problems impress me. Mr. Cheong Wai Hon (Golo) and Mr. William Chun San Chu also deserve to be mentioned here for those helpful discussions in the group meetings. vi Special thanks also go to Dr. Zhengchuan Yang. He is my source of information about many things both technical and non-technical. Without his help about the mask drawings, much of my time will be wasted in these tedious tasks