Final Report

Executive summary

Organisation: Centre of Excellence CEPHEUS

The Centre is the integral part of the Institute of Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the largest scientific institution in Poland working in the field of solid state physics and estimation of basic properties of matter. The Centre engages in its activity Laboratory of X-ray and Electron Microscopy being more than 1/10 part of the Institute of Physics. The Centre employs 42 staff members, among whom, 35 are directly involved in the research activity. The personal roster is the following: 1 full professor, 4 associate professors, 20 researchers with the doctor's degree, 1 assistance, 9 Ph.D. students and 7 technical staff.

Activities:

The research activity of the Centre has an interdisciplinary approach and concerns the comprehensive characterisation of matters: crystal structure, elements content, and their distribution, and electronic structure. Particular attention is paid to detecting the trace and heavy elements contents and estimation of ionic state of elements which is crucial for their chemical activity. The numerous techniques investigating, on an atomic scale, the structure of matter have been developed. The knowledge of the atomic order at the nano-scale allows the physicists to describe with increasing precision the fundamental interactions and to explain the physical properties of new technologically important materials. The techniques based on radiation and particles interaction with matter are of special interest of the Centre.

Equipment and training possibility:

The Centre offers the possibility of training for scientists and Ph.D. students in applying:

* high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM)

* high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD)

* secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS)

* electron probe microanalysis (EPMA)

The main objective of the Centre activity was to spread and increase the knowledge of modern techniques for estimation of atomic and electronic structure of natural samples and new materials as well to perform the research to increase the level of confidence of the analysis. This objective was successfully realised during the three years of the Centre’s activity using the measures had planned in the project. Three work packages were in full devoted to increasing the knowledge of modern techniques. Namely the packages WP 2-4 were devoted to organisation of scientific meetings. All planned meetings were organised according the scheduled time and were devoted to the planned scientific topics. The International Conference on Experimental and Computing Methods in High Resolution Diffraction Applied for Structure Characterization of Modern Materials, HREDAMM was held in Zakopane, 13-17 June, 2004. The Conference program provided an opportunity for scientists to meet together to exchange their concepts related to different high resolution diffraction methods used for studies of modern materials. The conference addressed all aspects of high resolution diffraction. The topics of meeting included advanced experimental diffraction methods and computer data analysis for characterisation of modern materials as well the progress and new achievements in high resolution diffraction (X-ray, electrons and neutrons). Application of these methods for characterisation of modern materials was widely presented among the invited, oral and poster contributions. The HREDAMM conference, in our opinion, stimulated the exchange of ideas between the scientists working in the field of materials characterisation by using the different diffraction tools. The friendly atmosphere of this meeting and particularly social program which included the afternoon walking in the mountains making young scientists and PhD students possible to discuss informally their problems with the well known specialists in the high resolution x-ray diffraction. In a few cases it resulted in common works which showed the necessity to include corrections which had missed in existing theoretical models, thus led to increase of level of confidence of the performed analysis.

Next meeting: Symposium on "Applications of Linear and Area Detectors for X-ray and Neutron Diffraction and Spectroscopy" was organised in the framework of the E-MRS Fall Meeting, September 6-10, 2004, Warsaw. The meeting was successful as a forum where the materials scientists and detector scientists could meet and discuss what the materials science could do for detector development and how the progress in detector technology influenced on materials science. This meeting was closely related to the second objective of the project namely: to exchange information about modern equipment available in the leading Polish and European laboratories, and to improve and intensify links with chosen European research centres giving access to the unique facilities important for development of materials characterisation and technology. The Symposium provided the overview of existing high quality detectors particularly the position sensitive detectors which open the new experimental possibilities. It demonstrated a large variety of applications of linear and area detectors in materials science in studies involving X-rays and neutrons in the domain of condensed matter, biological and medical materials, enabled to compare the classical and new materials used for detector construction. The participants could learn about the ways of overcoming technological and scientific barriers in detector construction, and about the current physical limits of detector influencing on their energy and spatial resolution, noise, counting rate and efficiency. Recent advances and future limits in the development of linear and area detectors were also presented.

During the last year of Centre’s activity the workshop was organised with main goal to improve the quality of education. The educational aspect of the work measures was directed to creation of innovative methods for training high-skilled specialists necessary for quick characterisation of new materials produced by modern technology. The advanced methods of interpretation of the transmission electron microscopy images, x-ray diffraction and absorption spectra as well the SIMS measurements were presented during the Workshop on “Advanced Method for Interpretation of TEM, X-ray and SIMS Measurements in Nano and Atomic Scale”, organised in June 1-3, 2005 according to the realisation timetable of the Work Packages (WP 4). The scope of the Workshop included also selected revue of new approaches to computer methods for data analysis, theoretical and practical presentation of modern methods of experimental data acquisition and processing, computer methods of structure modelling applied to interpretation of experimental measurements. The participants, mostly, young people, had the opportunity to deepen their knowledge or to learn about new developments in structural characterisation in nanometric scale and also to compare the possibilities of these methods giving information on local structure (quantitative transmission electron microscopy) with these ones delivered by the synchrotron radiation techniques giving averaged information from a bigger volume.

In addition to the planned meetings the highly focused mini-workshops dedicated to young researchers and devoted only to Quantitative High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy (QHRTEM) was organised in 2004. The QHRTEM starts to play an important role in characterisation of such semiconductor nanostructures as quantum dots, quantum wells and quantum wires. However, the complex workflow is necessary to achieve the optimal artefact free results of local strains and chemical mapping with near atomic resolution. In the case of studying a nanosegregation process and an interface characterisation in ternary systems this method surpasses all analytical methods, from the resolution and sensitiveness point of view. This event added mostly to improving the quality of education and increasing the level of confidence of the results of analysis. During training sessions the participants had opportunity to digitize and to process the TEM images under optimal conditions due to high quality scanners, computers and networking infrastructure collected in the Centre as a durable equipment of the CEPHEUS project. The experimental remote computing technique (created for the workshop) was used to permit all participants to make images processing separately on the central server. This successful informatics experiment gives the potential technical possibilities for organisation of the virtual training courses in the future.

The other main goal of the Centre’s activity was intensification of co-operation with the European Centres applying photon, electron and ion based methods as analytical tools in natural science. The measures to achieve this goal were planned in the work packages WP 1 and WP 5. The realisation of this goal relied on exchange of information about modern equipment available in different centres, on examination of the possibility of using equipment and computer programs available in the European Centres for common research. The best way to get this information is participation in international scientific meetings. Apart from the meetings organised by the Centre described above also participation in other European highly specialised meetings was important. Such meetings create possibility not only to get overview of achievements in the particular fields and to present own results but also to meet scientists in person. The personal contacts were very important to discuss the possibility to perform short visits as well as to invite researchers to visit to the Centre. Due to the CEPHEUS project the scientists from the Centre took part in 2 large Congresses (6 persons), 7 International Conferences (18 persons), 8 highly specialised workshops (9) and 1 symposium and 1 seminar. They presented there 71 contributions with acknowledge of the CEPHEUS grant. The knowledge of existing experimental equipment gained there and earlier cooperation resulted in visits to 23 different European scientific institutions, during the three years of the Centre’s activity. To improve the knowledge and qualifications of the scientists from the CEPHEUS Centre the 23 foreign scientists from 18 European scientific institutions visited to the Centre. During these visits there were discussed the possibilities of using modern spectroscopic and diffraction methods as analytical tools for studies of natural, biomedical and modern technology materials, and of forming research groups for further studies, discussing and preparing obtained results for common publications and coordinating further co-operation. Altogether the scientists from the CEPHEUS Centre realised 106 short visits to the European research institutes (43 were performed by PhD students). During these visits researchers performed also experiments using the available unique equipment and equipment at synchrotron large facilities. 13 scientific projects were realised by 23 persons at the DESY Hamburg, one in BESSY Berlin, Germany (1 person), 3 at MAXLAB, Lund, Sweden (6 persons) and 4 at ESRF Grenoble, France (12 persons). The first results of performed experiments have been published in the 16 Annual Reports of large facilities. Till now 53 publications were published or accepted for publication in international journals. A few abstracts have been submitted to conferences which will be held in 2006 and at least two other papers for publications.

The researchers, which visited the Centre usually participated in the Centre’s weekly seminars and they presented the recent results of their works and carried out fruitful discussions. The abstracts of the lectures, brief reports on their staying can be found together with photos on the CEPHEUS Centre’s web page (http://info.ifpan.pl/cepheus), created from the very beginning in the frame of activity of the WP 6.

The particular attention during the Centre’s activity was paid to the training of PhD students and young scientists in the advanced methods for characterisation of matter. The measures for this were put into the work package WP 5. The Centre is relatively well-equipped with the laboratory diffractometers for materials research and the scientific staff of the Centre has a great experience and deep knowledge of operating this equipment. Therefore, according to the plan, practices of three young scientists from the European Universities and two from the Polish Universities were provided by the Centre. During one month’s training in X-ray diffraction measurements of semiconductors they learned how to operate the high-resolution diffractometer and powder diffractometer performed their own measurements and made their interpretation with help of our scientists. Seven PhD students from the CEPHEUS Centre visited the high-experienced European institutions for 8 one months’ practices. Discussions and tutorial practical exercises gave them the opportunity to increase the knowledge of modern techniques used for characterisation of new materials. They gained deep knowledge of theory on which base analysis of data with high level of confidence. They had also possibility to collect some data for doctor’s thesis. Two of them already got their doctor’s degrees.

The funds allocated for the durable equipment were used for improving the computers basis available for visitors and data processing as well as for copying scientific materials and creating the web page about the CEPHEUS and the organised events. The poster with information about activity of the Centre was presented at the conference devoted to presentation of all the Centres in Poland (Warsaw). Now the poster is exposed in the Institute. The special booklet about the CEPHEUS has been spreading out among visited Universities and Institutes. The measures for dissemination of information about activity of the CEPHEUS Centre were collected in the work package WP 6. Within the three years’ period of the Centre’s activity the following goals were reached: maintenance of the Centre’s Internet server, updating information about scientific visits to and from the Centre, computer service of the organised scientific meetings, access to computer programs and scientific data, development and testing of handling and processing scientific data and software, preparation and testing scientific and education software, assistance in training of young scientists. The website of the Centre was permanently accessible through the Internet address http://info.ifpan.edu.pl/cepheus. The current information, reports on the visits from and to European Centres realised in the framework of the Centre’s activity and abstracts of seminar offered by visitors can be found there. The server was available in the scope of web pages information for all people and additionally, due to problem with virus protection, for visitors from local area network (LAN) in scope of access to scientific data and software. The LAN open system allowed to perform computer exercises during the International Mini-Workshop on Practical Aspects of Quantitative Analysis of HRTEM Images.

Finally, as results of all international activities performed due to the European funds from the CEPHEUS project, three common European projects were prepared and submitted in the frame of the European Science Foundation call and VI European Community programmes.

Problems encountered

During realisation of the CEPHEUS Centre’s activity we encountered a few problems mainly connected with financial aspects of the contract: depreciation of durable equipment, annual instalments of the UC contribution and, exchanging rate of Euro.

Durable equipment depreciation – according to the project the costs for durable equipment may be eligible if the equipment has been purchased within 6 months before starting date of the project, and the depreciation period is the only period of contract –the first trouble is that it is impossible to buy any equipment before we get the funds from the EC, in practice, this means that we are able to purchase the planned equipment only a few weeks after starting off the project. Thus, there is impossible to fully depreciate even computers (36 months) during the three years’ period of the project realisation. Therefore we have to enlist support of other sponsors which is very hard and complicated in the case of projects fully financed by other institution. Another problem connected with depreciation it is approval by the Commission only yearly depreciation while we must pay full invoice value of the purchased equipment in the moment of invoicing, so we must spend all money on the purchase and look for money to credit the depreciation during next years. Our suggestion is to obtain from the Commission full estimated allowable costs for durable equipment in the first year of the project’s realisation it would let to avoid many financial problems with deficit financing.

Reimbursement only of the real costs reported in the annual statement of costs did not cover the planned cost for next year activity. It caused that we had no enough money to realise the activity in next year.

Variable exchange of euro makes impossible to precise foresee and estimate the real costs of performed activity. Fluctuation of exchange rate causes the significant differences between effective expenses and recovered expenses settled at the rate on the date of the periodic report.

In our opinion, at least, the yearly expense account of the purchased equipment should be settled at the rate on the date of purchase. Otherwise the floating rate of exchange presents serious financial problems for us.