October round winner

NT-MDT Co. is happy to present the winner of the October round of the probe images contest ProIMAGE. According to the online voting and decision of the NT-MDT expert team the winner is Dr. Marinello Francesco, Department of Innovation in Mechanical Engineering and Management (DIMEG), University of Padova, Italy. Please, welcome!

Francesco Marinello is an Italian researcher, working in engineering of functional surfaces at DIMEG in collaboration with Inter-University Centre for Nanotechnology (CIVEN), Venice. The spheres of scientific interest of these two groups are the following: microtechnologies (process, forming, replication, simulations, testing) and nanotechnologies (thin films deposition, nanocomposite materials, biosensors).   Transversally, surface characterization plays a key role. It can benefit from five different SPM systems which, together with electron and confocal microscopy, allow proper characterization of materials and surfaces.

In particular the NTEGRA Prima by NT-MDT system is regularly used by the researchers for topography characterizations (AFM, both in the large scale and in high resolution), high temperature measurements (up to 300°C), acoustic measurements (AFAM, for mapping of mechanical properties), Kelvin probe and electric force microscopy (EFM and KPM, to map conductivity and potential).   In the field of Scanning Probe Microscopy, Francesco Marinello’s sphere of interest is enhancing instrument performance (allowing extreme characterizations at the nanoscale) and defining procedures for implementation of SPM tools into high tech production processes. Dr. Marinello’s scientific efforts are also spent on data processing, for optimization of information content from scanned surfaces. Results of this research have been reported in several journals (Measurement Science and Technology, Wear, Advanced Functional Materials, CIRP Annals etc.) and conferences (ECOSS, Euspen, CIRP, Nanoscale). The summary of works was reported in Dr. Marinello’s PhD thesis.

Scan #108 “Into the grooves” has brought the October victory to its author.   And here are Dr. Marinello’s own description of the winning image. “It is an example of a chromium pattern on a glass substrate, useful for calibration of optical instruments, and interesting as a basis for designing microfluidic systems for sensing or bio-MEMS applications.” The champion image was obtained by GOLDEN series probe NSG10.

Scan #108 Scan size 45x45 µm.

NT-MDT Co. congratulates Dr. Francesco Marinello on the victory and wishes him success in all of the scientific spheres he involved in. The Company is happy to provide reliable equipment for our clients’ scientific needs that give birth to the great discoveries in different fields of application.

And as always by the decision of NT-MDT expert team the authors of TOP-10 images get NT-MDT souvenirs (4 GB flash memory stick with a laser pointer). So welcome their authors:   Dr. Alexander E. Sobolev (Associate Professor, the Department of Chemistry of Tver State Technical University) with the scan #122 “Rhythms of minerals' music” (probes used: CSG10)   Dr. Marinello Francesco (Researcher, DIMEG - University of Padova) with the scan #108 “Into the grooves” (probes used: NSG10)   Dr. Boris A. Gribkov (Research fellow, Institute for Physics of Microstructures RAS) with the scan #121 “Micro Starfishes” (probes used: NSG11)   Prof. Jennifer Conroy (Professor, Department of Clinical Medicine, Trinity College, Dublin) with the scan #116 “Phagocyte filopodia” (probes used: NSG10).   Mr. Joseph Kassim (Ph.D Candidate, University of Virginia, Materials Science Department) with the scan #120 “Bilayer steps on the SrTiO3 (001) surface” (probes used: NSG01)   Dr. Vladimir A. Smirnov (Teacher, Southern Federal University of Technology) with the scans #104 “Solar eclipse”, #105  “Solar eclipse 3d” (probes used: NSG11)   Mr. D.V. Bagrov (Research assistant, Moscow State University) with the scan #133 “Polypropylene film with thin aluminium” (probes used: NSG11)   Mr. Y. M. Efremov (Student, Moscow State University, Department of biology) with the scan #112 “Polyoxybutirate film” (probes used: NSG11)   Anna Roskoshnaya (Student, Moscow State University) with the scan #110 “Nanofibers of spider silk 2” (probes used: NSG11)   NT-MDT congratulates all the authors of TOP-10 images and wishes them success and further pleasant collaboration with our company!   Dear participants, NT-MDT Co. would like to thank you for your interest and activity concerning ProIMAGE Contest. The submission for ProIMAGE Contest 2009 is closed. But we invite all of you to take part in the online voting for the best November image.   NT-MDT Co. hopes our Contest was interesting and useful for you!