IS THE RESULT OF MY OWN INVESTIGATION AND RESEARCH, EXCEPT FOR THOSE ITEMS EXPLICITLY MENTIONED IN THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, AND THAT IT HAS NOT BEEN SUBMITTED IN PART OR FULL FOR ANY OTHER

The presentation of this dissertation would not have been possible without the significant contributions of the following people: Dr. K. Govender, for his direction and supervision and all that I have learnt from him during the period of my research. In particular I would like to acknowledge the following contribution by Dr. Govender; conducting the experiments and capturing the raw data, assisting in writing up Chapter 3, especially section 3.4, making available his CIV programmes and assisting in the phase-ensemble-average calculations. Dr. S. Moolla for his computational assistance and his encouragement. Mr H. Edwards for his computational assistance. Prof. M. McPherson for his guidance and encouragement. The members of the Physics department, especially Robert van den Heetkamp, Ronald Teemane and Pam Singh, for their encouragement and advice. My family for their patience, love and support from the very start. Kuben Naicker, whose love, support and encouragement have been indispensible