I prepared samples with silver nanoparticles obtained by metal island film (MIF) method.
Samples annealed at the 400 Celsius degrees revealed reduction of reflection of Si wafer and change in position of reflection minima due to the change in plasmon resonance for different samples. Highest reflection reduction was obtained for 17 nm initial Ag layer.

By SEM observations average paricles size was found:
120 - 135 nm for inintial 11nm,
130 - 140 nm for initial 14nm,
150 - 170 nm for initial 17 nm,
180 - 200 nm for initial 20 nm.

This corresponds with optical properties of the prepared samples

During August I have tried to finish my next article entitled: "Effect of Ti, Zr and Hf addition on microstructure and properties of rapidly solidified Al-Mn-Fe alloy”. I also prepared poster: “Quasicrystalline phase in Al-Mn-Fe-X melt spun ribbons – structure and stability” for the next conference: The 12th International Conference on Quasicrystals (ICQ12).

In July I have started corrosion experiments in HBSS salts solution in 37 st. C. First results of Mg-3Zn, Mg-3Ca, Mg-3Zn-2Ca and Mg-3Zn-3Ca wt. % are very promissing. Mass percentage loss varies among the samples as predicted.

In August I polished and polished ...it takes forever, occasionally, to produce a suitable sample for EBSD studies. Nevertheless the game is worth the effort since we manged to grow (directional solidification) a specimen comosed only of three or less grains!

This month I was focused on writing another one article. It is entitled: “Zastosowanie techniki FIB-SEM do badań wybranych materiałów drobnokrystalicznych” and is supposed to be printed in the proceedings of the “XLI Szkoła Inżynierii Materiałowej” conference which will take place in September in Krynica Zdrój. Additionally, I was processing the experimental data collected from ZrO2 samples using the Dream3D software.