My deepest gratitude goes to my advisor, Privatdoz. Viktor Sverdlov, without whom it would be impossible to do this work. He introduced me to spin physics, strained silicon, the k⋅p method, and showed me how to apply it.
I also thank Privatdoz. Dr. Dieter Suess for serving on my examination committee.
I would like to thank Prof. Erasmus Langer, the head of the Institute for Microelectronics, for taking care of all the bureaucracy and providing me with numerous support letters for different visas.
I would like to thank Dr. Thomas Windbacher who helped me a lot in solving different problems from sending CO2 capsules across the border to proofreading this thesis.
During my work at the institute I had the pleasure to collaborate on different levels with many other colleagues I have a high regard for: Dr. Alexander Makarov, Dr. Stanislav Tyaginov, Dr. Lado Filipovic, Dr. Ivan Starkov, Dr. Mihail Nedjalkov, Dr. Josef Weinbub, Paul Ellinghaus, Dr. Roberto Orio, Dr. Wolfgang GĻos, Dr. Karl Rupp, Zlatan Stanojevic, Oskar Baumgartner, Dr. Neophytos Neophytou, Yury Illarionov, Dr. Vassil Palankovski.
Besides the Institute I was fortunate to meet Georg Franschitz who showed me all beauties of Austria that are reachable by bike: from Vienna to the top of the Großglockner. The Bike-Wochenende and the Ļ Osterreich-Radrundfahrt 2013 together with GĻunther Teubersen, Rudolf Paul, Paul Ellinghaus and all other cycling partners made my past years brilliant.
I would like to thank Dmitry Kryzhanovsky without whose support and assistance, I would never have started working in this institute.
Finally, but not least, I want to thank my parents Irina and Sergey and my brother Konstantin for the endless support and faith in me. My gratitude to them is hard to describe by words.
This work was supported by the European research Council through the grant #247056 MOSILSPIN. The computational results were achieved in part using the Vienna Scientific Cluster (VSC).