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The vortex fluctuations have proved to be responsible for the onset of dissipation in thin type-II superconducting Aims. There is also growing evidence that dissipation in high- temperature superconductors exhibits the same kind of two-dimensional (2D) behavior. However, a proper analysis of these materials requires a thorough understanding of the two-dimensional fluctuations.

This thesis may be considered to consist of two parts. The first is concerned with two models that have often been used as models for 2D superconductors, the 2D Coulomb gas and the 2D XY model. The second part contains analyses related to high-temperature sup er conductivity.

Through analysis of some renormalization equations for the Kosterlitz-Thouless (KT) transition, it is shown that the region governed by the KT critical behavior is very small and only applies at very low values for the flux-flow resistance. It is concluded that this critical behavior not is observable in superconductors, and, furthermore, that the only available method to test for 2D fluctuations at the onset of resistance, is through comparison with the 2D resistance scaling function.

The critical temperature for the 2D XY model is determined by means of a finite- size scaling relation for the helicity modulus. The linearly screened potential in the XY model is written in terms of a correlation function. The analogy to the 2D Coulomb gas is found to be exact with a temperature-dependent bare interaction and a new expression for vorticity. It is also demonstrated that the Coulomb gas scaling concept may be applied to XY-type models.

An analysis of resistance data for YBCO/PBCO superlattices in terms of the 2D resistance scaling function gives evidence for 2D behavior in the cases with large separation of the superconducting layers. In the superlattices with stronger interlayer coupling, the crossover to three-dimensional behavior is seen as a deviation from the scaling function as T_c is approached from above.

The anisotropic three-dimensional (3D) XY model is examined as a model for high- temperature superconductors. It is shown that the density of vortices above Tc are closely equal in the anisotropic 3D model and the 2D model. This is taken as evidence that the 3D to 2D crossover found in the superlattices also is present in the anisotropic 3D XY model.