In march 2011 I was preparing for a seminar during which I was supposed to present results of my masters thesis and tell something about my plans for preparing PhD thesis. In my MSc work I was investigating photocatalytic activity of titanium dioxide with gold nanoparticles deposited on its surface. Three commercially available powders were used in the investigations. Gold nanoparticles were deposited using thermally induced deposition-precipitation method with AuCl3 as a precursor. A series of samples with different nominal Au load and pH of the slurry was prepared. Obtained materials were characterized by means of reflectance spectroscopy and Kelvin probe work function measurements. Photocatalytic activity was investigated by photoelectrochemical measurements. Additionally, a series of samples was calcined and investigated again. The measurements showed that powder with the smallest grain size and highest amount of rutile phase was the most active under visible light irradiation. In my PhD work I am going to apply the EBSD technique combined with FIB to analyze structure of highly deformed aluminum alloys, electrodeposited Nickel protective coatings and try to investigate PLZT ceramic materials.
Apart from presenting my own seminar I attended two other seminars presented by:
- M. Sc. Eng Rafal Abram: ‘Atomistic simulations of the process of phase separation in the Fe-Cr system’
- M. Sc. Eng Artur Kudyba: ‘Influence of technological factors on the wettability of soldering’
I have also tried to run a measurement of an Aluminum 6013 sample deformed using KOBO method but the electron source (FEG) intensity was to low (because of lifetime coming to an end) and I could not obtain indexable diffractions.

The influence of zirconium and scandium on microstructural and textural changes of severely deformed aluminum alloys

Aluminium base alloys strengthened by quasicrystalline particles

Influence of the acid and alkaline texturization processes on basic opto-electronics parameters of the silicon solar cells