Final Activity Report Summary - MINDE (Micro and nano deposition)
ATC 2, held in Schwaebisch-Gmuend, provided an in-depth approach to coating technology related to the control of deposition processes during the production of nano-structured materials. The processes included structure of electrodeposits and electrokinetics, diffraction measurement on nano-crystalline thin film and multilayer, micro surface analysis, control of deposits, model for the electrodeposition of alloys, electrodeposition of single metals with preferred orientation and hydrogen co-deposition.
ATC 3, held in Athens, provided an in-depth approach to the following topics: Micro-structured Bulk Materials and Surface Coatings, Copper Plating for PCBs, Nano-Wires and Nano-Dots, Lead free, Low Whiskering Tin Electrodeposits, Scale up of Gold Electrodeposition from Sulphitic, Electrolytes - From Lab Scale to Pilot Scale, Coatings for Data Storage, Electrodeposition of Semiconductors, Current Density Distribution and their Application to Patterned Wafer Plating, Nanostructured Coatings (Multilayer).
ATC 4, held in Trento, provided an in-depth approach to the following topics: Functional Surfaces and Coatings for Biomedical Applications, Activation and Functionalisation of Medical Devices by Physical and Chemical Surface Coatings, New Aspects of ER-Sensor for monitoring of Corrosion in Electronic, Production, Characterisation and Detection Capabilities of Thin Organic Films for Sensing Application, Electrochemical Methods for Micro-Patterning with-out Photolithography, Linear and non-Linear Optical Methods for in-situ Electrochemical Spectroscopy & Spectromicroscopy
Each ATC course consisted of four parts, respectively:
First part "Basic Knowledge": each course started with one introductory day, essential to create a common glossary of definitions and principles of electrochemical systems, deposition processes and methods to control them;
Second part "Methodologies": this part covered different topics each year;
Third part "Group research projects": the participants have been divided into groups, invited to solve a problem and to prepare an oral presentation. Fully networked workrooms have been provided with pc that enabled web search work to be carried out as well as for the team assignments and power point presentations. All the didactic material has been installed on EAST web site (http://www.east-site.net). This gave to the students the opportunity to interact with tutors and keynote speakers and to acquire great knowledge useful to develop new ideas for their research work.
Fourth part "Innovative on novelties": at the end of each ATC, a Forum related to the arguments tackled during the training courses, have been organised with keynote speakers, giving the opportunity to researchers to do oral presentations.
MINDE Training courses proved to be extremely successful with 191 students participating from 18 countries. During each ATC students have been divided in groups of 5- 6 persons each, formed by students from different countries and different experience levels.