University of Groningen
Self-adaptive and self-healing nanocomposite tribocoatings
Cao, Huatang
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Publication date: 2019
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Cao, H. (2019). Self-adaptive and self-healing nanocomposite tribocoatings. University of Groningen.
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CKNOWLEDGEMENT
How time flies, when I look back the four years in Groningen, all the stories come to my minds, the life here was full of ups and downs, but with more happiness and gratitude. First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Yutao Pei. Yutao, thank you very much for offering me the opportunity to start my PhD study in the Advanced Production Engineering (APE) group at University of Groningen. With your constant supervision, encouragement and freedom, I explored a new interesting research field in my career: Sputtering deposition of nanocomposite tribocoating, which was rather different from the metallurgical alloys studied in my master period. Without your numerous support and intelligent guidance on experimental design, analysis, and paper writing and revision, I could not complete the project successfully. Your scientifically strict attitudes and critical thinking really inspire me for the whole life. I also greatly acknowledged your “open-door-policy”, thereby I could discuss with you when any problems arise and I learned a lot from the discussions with you in your office. Secondly, I am grateful to my second promoter Prof. Jeff Th. M. De Hosson. Jeff, thank you for your supervision and so many valuable suggestions and discussions on my project. You are so kind and did not give me up in my difficult times in the first two years of Ph.D period. I am so impressed by your passion and critical thinking on science from a physical standpoint and quick responses to our papers or any other scientific consultations. Also particular acknowledgements are for the use of the state-of-the-art facilities and equipment in the MK group.I am very grateful to colleagues from APE and MK groups who gave such a lot of professional trainings and supports during my projects. This thesis could not be done without the supports from all of you. David and Emad, thank you so much for the frequent helps and good jobs in operating the laps smoothly, particularly maintain the magnetron sputtering rig and microscope in my project. Mikhail, my former colleague, thanks very much for kind trainings on sputtering, SEM, AFM, FIB, Nanoindentation and for offering lots of helps on building up testing equipment. Jiancun, my first teacher in TEM, thank you very much for TEM training that facilitates my research. Ali, thanks for your help in EBSD and DIC analysis. Also I would like thank Prof. Antonis Vakis, Prof. Ajay Kottapalli, Prof. Jan Post, Liqiang, Zheng, Diego, Soheil (Solhjoo), Soheil (Sabooni), Amar, Yanji, Ranko, Jing, Ruoqi, Masoud, Debarun, Václave, Jintao, Enne, Anatoly, Paul, Indranil, Herman, Leo,
Acknowledgement
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Gerrit for your ever help and happy time in Groningen. I wish you all the best in the future. I learned numerous knowledge, skills and positive life attitudes from you in our group meetings or in daily communications. Paul Bronsveld, you are such a kind and virtuous colleague. Taraneh, my wonderful roommate for almost three years, I appreciate your kindness and encouragement during my bad moments and nice daily discussions.
Then, I would like to give my gratitude to many colleges from other groups for numerous supports that speed up my researches. Prof. Wesley R. Browne, I am grateful to the supportive helps and valuable discussions to the Raman analysis. Prof. Beatriz Noheda and Mr. Jacob Baas and Mart Salverda, I express my gratitude to you for the trainings and supports on the access to the (GI)XRD. In addition, I would like to thank Prof. Petra Rudolf, Dr. Jiquan Wu, Sumit Kumar and Jos Noteboom for the XPS measurement, training and data analysis. And also I acknowledge Prof. Bart Kooi for some training in EF-TEM/SAED and Dr Jamo Momand for some help in HR-TEM and TEM sample preparation. Sumit and Jamo, you are not good colleagues but also good friends, I enjoy working with you. I also would like to thank Prof. Feng Wen for his kind discussions and encouragement during his one-year visit in Groningen. Besides, I would like thank Prof. XiuBo Tian from Harbin Institute of Technology for the inspiring and fruitful talk in PVD process in the ICMCTF 2017 conferences at San Diego and PBIID 2017 at Shanghai, respectively. I also thank my master thesis supervisor Prof. Xuanpu Dong for his long-lasting support.
I sincerely thank the reading committee of my thesis, Prof. Albano Cavaleiro, Prof. Jan Post and Prof. Antonis Vakis for taking your time in assessing my thesis and providing me lots of valuable comments and suggestions. I wish to express my gratitude to my paranymphs, Liqiang and Taraneh, for supporting me with my defense and organizing so many tedious matters in last two months. I also would like to thank our group secretary Johanna, and our former secretary Frederika and Inge. All of your great supports really make my working conveniently and smoothly, you all really release a lot of my life troubles. I also thank Dr Fei Pei for writing the summary of this thesis in Dutch.
Moreover, It is fortunately to meet so many, many Chinese friends in Groningen: Xiaoming, Xin Zhao, Zhenchen, Jielin, Xiaodong, Baojie, we came to Groningen excitedly at the same day boarding on the same air plane and the train. Then I embrace a big Chinese “family”: Shuai, Hongyan, Yanan, Jing Sun and Jiaying, Ji Zhang, Cong, Yang, Binqi and Shili, Juan, Suqing, Yang Jiang, Peng Wang, we shared so many get-together in Planetenlaan building. Ning Ding, Guowei, Yifei and Yihui, Kai, Qihong, Honghua, Jin Xu, Crystal Si, Fangfang, Jiquan, Gang Ye, Jiacong, Yuanyuan Wang, Bin
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Jiang, Xu Hu, Suriguga, Jing Wu, Zhibo, Haojie, Bin Jiang, Yingying, Linlin, Jiapeng, Qingkai and Yuhan, Yizhou, Yingfen, Chao, Huan, Yuanzhe and Jingjing, Zhuohua and Jingling, Peiliang and Lijuan, Lei and Juan, Ling and Zhiwei, Xiaoshan, Qi Cao, Miaozhen, Xinyu, Chenglong, Chengyong, Kailan, Yan and Fang, Qikai, Keni, Yi Yu, Yi Zhang, Hao, Qihui, Qi Xu, Yizhou, Xinchen, Yuzhen, and later Xiaoying, Kai Xu, Xiaocui, Feng Yan, Jing Du, Shilin, Xiaotian, Rongjing, Yangcui, Zhiwen, Junjie, Yuanyuan Sheng, Haibin, and many other friends not listed here. I also appreciate the time with some other friends in the Netherlands, Jiakun, Fufu, Lingtong, Yawen, Guannan, Wei, Jiao Chen, Dingding, Shuai Yuan, Haixing, Kaipeng, Xin Liu, etc. I also thank many other interesting friends particularly from the Groningen Badminton Association, the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in the Netherlands, and the Groningen Chorus Association. We enjoyed the badminton, swimming, gala, barbecue, hiking, foods, cards, chorus music, student activities together, shared our stores and daily living skills, talked about the life and dreams... All of you gave me lots of supports, happiness and memorable moments. I will cherish the moments with you.
Lastly and importantly, I sincerely give my greatest gratitude to my parents for the all-life supports. Thanks for raising me up for who I am today with your infinite love. Wish you a happy and healthy life. Dear sister and sister-in-law, also thank you for taking care of our parents during my long time absence.
Huatang Cao Groningen 26-12-2018
