The image above of steel etched in picric acid and imaged under ionic liquid is from a study into the electrolytic corrosion process of stainless steel.  Professor Abbott has been engaged in the commercialisation of a new electropolishing process with a University of Leicester spin-out company Scionix.  This process uses a novel ionic liquid technology giving environmentally benign materials to replace mixtures of strong inorganic corrosive acids currently used in existing processes.

The image above (tapping mode AFM) forms part  of a study of the deposition of polystyrene beads on a gold coated  crystal resonator.  The ordered matrix acts as a template for electrolytic metal deposition.  Subsequently the beads are dissolved away leaving a “foam-like” metal structure.  Such structures have very interesting optical and electronic properties.