Most of this month was spend on holidays, so there is much to write about but it does not concern science. Berore holidays i was interpreting data collected during previous month.

Having researched some more literature we came up with new compositions to be studied. New alloys will cast by means of induction melting as well as arc melting. Then we will transfer the bulk alloys into melt spun ribbons in order to compare the properties resulting, if any difference, from microstructure rfeinment.

I started last month with an attendance in The XXII Conference on Applied Crystallography which took place in Targanice. I had an opportunity to listen to many lectures covering a really vast spectrum of topics related to crystallography and materials science. I presented a poster entitled "On Frequencies of Occurrence of Geometrically Characteristic Grain Boundaries". In fact, during the preparation of the poster, many new ideas came out for the future and I started to work on extending the considered ideas to the cases of all holohedral symmetries with at least two-fold symmetry axis.

In September I was carrying measurements of Crofer22APU steel. EDS and WDS techniques were applied to investigate chemical composition of oxide layers forming on materials surface. Particular attention was paid to precipitates. It was found that with increasing oxidation time the density of crystallites containing higher amount of chromium was also increasing. Additionally, it increase in Mn amount on the samples surface, compared to theoretical value, was observed.

Simulation model based on measurements of enhancement of light transmission to the silicon substrate revealed that 160nm diameter sphere should be the most relevant in that case.
This model will be improved in the spring 2013.