May, May May…just reflecting on this shortest of months, in terms of the number of characters in its name of course! In May I cooked mostly that is to say I busied myself with preparing a concoction. I mixed together ethanol and orthoposphoric acid, which was to give a solution badly needed for making thin foils for our TEM studies. Something hasn’t gone according to plan though and the concoction turned out not to be as effective as the previous one. That left me with no other choice but to make another one. Trying maybe to change one of the ingredients. Can’t change both!
In May I also started writing up, no, no, no, not my thesis, but my first article. Aye, aye! I put together all of the results and tried to squeeze some sense out of it. The coming months taught me however that life ain't easy and I will have to practice my scientific writing skills a bit more. TOUGH! Howerla

I attended a workshop titled "Texture Analysis with MTEX emphasasing EBSD Data Analysis" which took place in Freiberg, Germany at the TU Bergakademie. The most interesting part focused on reconstruction and analysis of 3D EBSD data, in particular on grain reconstraction, meshing and smoothing surface of grain boundaries.

Last month I prepared an article which will be published in the journal 'Elektronika'. In addition I prepared samples (silicon wafers) that will be etched during the research internship on Wroclaw University of Technology in June.

The last month started from the Fool’s Day like it takes place every year. I am an ideal candidate for being a victim of cruel jokes of fate. Therefore at the beginning of the month every step in my studies was a complete disaster. Fortunately there was light somewhere at the end of the tunnel...
I focused on evaluation of the results of polyelectrolyte films micro-hardness measurements. I also prepared a series of samples to study thermal stability of the coatings. This experiment was carried out using the differential scanning calorimetry and the microscopic analysis of endothelial cell growth kinetics. Moreover I’ve started working on the production of alginate microcapsules that could potentially find application as carriers located within the scaffolds which could ensure the gradual release of factors that promote cell growth and differentiation.

The most interesting event this month was the „FEI DualBeam Users Club Meeting” in Eindhoven. I took part in it to have a look into the direction of development of the latest equipment. During the meeting I have received answers to few questions concerning 3D EBSD measurements and data processing. Rest of the month was spend on investigation of samples received from IOD.