In November I spent most of time analyzing results obtained from microbial experiments and AFM measurements. Of course, I was also working in the lab, where I had stained samples after Impact R test and subsequently visualized surfaces by CLSM.I prepared a new series of specimens for HUVEC growth kinetics observation but unfortunately cells refused adhesion on my PEM coatings. This failure surprised me a little bit but I figured out reason of tricky behavior of endothelial cells. I didn’t give them sweets (fibronectin) so they knocked on the other door.

My activities in November:
During this month I had to prepare oral presentation and poster for:

•1) 9th Polish-Japanese Joint Seminar on Micro and Nano Analysis organised together with Microscopy Society and University of Toyama, - Sieniawa 10-13 October 2012
•2) SIM 2012 organised by University of Science and Technology in Krakow - 24-27 October 2012

This was a really long month. I have been trying to resolve an issue of incompatibility of three coordinate systems: the one in which Euler angles of misorientations are computed, the one in which x and y coordinates of .ang data files are given and the last one which is used in the external software used for reconstruction of surface meshes of grain boundaries, the software interprets the first two somehow... I spent hours carrying out various tests hoping to end up with correct shape of grain boundary distributions. Meanwhile I improved many features of my program making it more user-friendly.

This month I was investigating samples of cubic zirconium dioxide. Samples were manufactured at AGH University of Technology. The cubic phase was stabilized by addition of 8mol % of yttria. First results are very promising, however material is quite porous what can cause some data processing difficulties. Those will be dealt with in the future.

In November I’ve made the first attempt of in situ production of AlN reinforcement in aluminium matrix using liquid Al and Mg3N2. For that purpose I placed a few green compacts of Mg3N2 powder on the bottom of an alumina crucible (in an induction furnace, under inert atmosphere) and covered it with a piece of aluminium ingot. Then I heated the crucible up to about 900^C allowing the reaction between Al and Mg3N2 to occur. Although a final product contained, as I wished, an aluminium nitride phase, a microstructure of the composite was highly inhomogeneous.