This month, I attended in a seminar called "2nd Joint PhD Seminar" held in Krakow in 17-18 October 2013. That was the second meeting of PhD students from PAS and TU Dresden (Germany) and this year also joined the semminar PhD students of AGH.

I gave a presentation: " Morphological and textural changes during annealing of fine grained AA1050 aluminum alloy ."

Summary of my presentation was published in the conference proceedings:

Abstract
The main aim of the experiment was to analyze the microstructure and texture changes during recrystallization of commercial AA1050 aluminium alloy. The samples were processed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) along route A up to six passes and then annealed for 1 hour at selected temperatures (ranging from 100°C to 350°C) to obtain different states of recrystallization. Studies carried out using scanning electron microscopy equipped with high-resolution electron backscattered diffraction facility (EBSD). An additional analysis was made by means of X-ray diffractometer.
The obtained results showed that at lower annealing temperatures, the material retains ultra-fine grain structure formed by ECAP.
At higher annealing temperatures rapid grain growth appears and transformation of flattened grains into nearly equiaxed ones was observed. Particular role in the rise of nuclei (at early stages of recrystallization) was attributed to migration of low-angle boundaries and cells coalescence. Later recrystallization stages were attributed to high-angle grain boundaries migration. These processes led to nearly equiaxed grains. It was documented that the length of traces of low- and high- angle boundaries decrease with increasing temperature of annealing. For lower annealing temperatures, the average values of misorientation angle across both types of grain boundaries increases. However, above the temperature of 270°C the value of misorientation angle across the low-angle boundaries decreases. The {111} pole figures showed in the deformed and partially recrystallized states two, nearly complementarily oriented texture components. At the temperature of 270°C these texture components were changed into other two dominant (also complementarily or twin-related) ones.

I examined waviness of silicon wafers using contact profilometer. It turned out that as a result they have cut quite high inhomogeneity in thickness reaching even 8 microns. Above all, I had a presentation with all obtained results and I was able to register for Ph.D. title conferment procedure.

In october i have attended a 4th Stanislaw Gorczyca School on TEM Basics and Advanced Sample Preparation which was organized by the AGH in Krakow. During the school I have listened to a number of lectures regarding various aspects of electron microscopy techniques and applications. Lectures were covering broad spectrum of subjects related to electron microscopy with main focus converged on Transmission Electron Microscope. Each segment was followed with practical demonstration on actual equipment, where participants had chance for more discussion regarding ways of conducting experiments.
Following the EM school i took place in 2nd Joint PhD Seminar this time organized in Krakow. During the seminar multiple oral presentations have been given by PhD students and young scientists from organizers institution (Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Science PAS and AGH Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics) as well as from abroad (TU Dresden). During the poster session I have presented poster presentation concerning my latest results on microstructural characterization of KoBo deformed hexagonal materials. Title of the presentation was: “Microstructure characterization in hexagonal materials deformed plastically by complex loading”.

On October 17th and 18th we took part in the “2nd Joint PhD seminar”. During the meeting young scientists from the AGH University of Science and Technology, Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and Institute for Materials Science of Technical University Dresden presented their new original results in scientific talks or posters. The topics covered included a wide variety of engineering materials, materials processing and advanced methods for materials characterization.

During October :
- I was investigating the spin coated Si wafer by SEM obserwations and optical measurements. Observed improvement of reflection reduction vanishes after washing the sample. Only few silver NPs were found by SEM observations. This work undermines previously obtained results and NPs-caused cell enhancement. Most probable explanation of cell improovement is formation of quasi antireflection coating from other solution compounds.
- I attended in general AFM and FTIR instruction.
- I performed SEM observations of photochemically prepared samples. Most important fingig was diveristy of particles shape with the beam intensity changes across one sample .