During September I had an opportunity to lear much more about my main technique - transmission electron microscopy. I have spent several days conducting observations by myself. Therefore it was possible to compare practice with theory.

During this month:
I have participated in the 12th International Conference on Quasicrystals.
I have finally started to write an introduction to my PhD thesis.
During breaks in writing I did some SEM studies of melt spun ribbons.

During this month I prepared new corrosion experiments - pure mg sample as a reference sample was used. Morover I participated in LMT 2013 conference in Great Britain where I had a pleasure to gave the talk about precipitation hardening in MgZnCa alloys.

During this month I participated in two scientific conferences. The first of them “IX Konferencja Polskiego Towarzystwa Ceramicznego” was held in Zakopane. I showed there a presentation entitled: „Zastosowanie techniki 3D-EBSD do analizy mikrostruktury porów i granic międzyziarnowych w tlenku cyrkonu”. The second conference: “XLI Szkoła Inżynierii Materiałowej” was held in Krynica Zdrój. I was supposed to show a presentation there, but due to unpredicted circumstances the conference was closed one day earlier and I did not manage to present my results. The rest of the month was spend on preparing for a seminar connected with the beginning of the PhD procedure.

Probably not accidentally in September I appeared on the SIM 2013 in Krynica, which is annual meeting of PhD students and Young Scientists. Meeting was aimed at bringing young researchers from different material science fields together to discuss the latest advancement and development of novel materials. During the conference I presented results of work entitled “Thermal stability of polyelectrolyte multilayer films for surface modification of blood contacting materials”. The low level of biocompatibility of materials used for cardiovascular implants, indicates the necessity of their targeted functionalization. An innovative approach is to modify the surface by polyelectrolyte coating with a thermal tolerance allows to store implant under cryogenic conditions and then use it for a long-term at physiological temperature. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of temperature in the range from -50 ° C to +50 ° C on physico-chemical properties and potential to endothelialisation of the coatings consist of poly-L-lysine (PLL) and hyaluronic acid (HA). The relationship between the chemical cross-linking degree and thermal stability of the multilayers was also investigated. Changes in films properties and behavior were assessed based on diffusion analysis by FRAP method and endothelial cells adhesion and proliferation assay. It has been shown that heating leads to small changes in the properties of the coating. There was improvement in thermal stability in response to increase of coatings cross-linking degree.