Vol 18, No 2 (2025)

The whole series of unique frames obtained over a year and a half from the world’s first space scanning probe microscope "CMM-2000C", operating in outer space in the Earth’s satellite Nanosonde-1 and capturing with nanometre precision changing the surface relief of a golden mirror exposed to solar wind and dust. Numerical analysis of gold relief frames on the change of roughness parameters, fractal dimensionality and statistics on grain sizes was obtained, graphs of change of these characteristics correlated with solar activity graphs are presented. Participation of a wide scientific community for interpretation of the obtained data is suggested.

A design of a liquid flow controller (LFC) for supplying liquid reagents to technological equipment using a differential pressure sensor is proposed. The results of LFC tests for regulating the liquid flow are presented. The possibility of regulating the liquid supply in the milliliter range with a relative error of less than 3% is demonstrated.

In this work, samples of nanoscale molybdenum oxide stabilised by hydroxyethylcellulose were prepared by sol-gel method. Scanning electron microscopy microstructure studies showed that the hydroxyethylcellulose-stabilised molybdenum oxide sample is represented by irregularly shaped aggregates ranging in size from 4 to 75 μm, which consist of nanoparticles with diameters ranging from 30 to 60 nm. As a result of computer quantum-chemical modelling of interaction between hydroxyethylcellulose and molybdenum oxide, it was found that the presented compound is energetically advantageous (∆E ≥ 4022.388 kcal/mol) and interaction occurs through the hydroxyl group attached to the C₂ residue of glucopyranose. This compound has a chemical rigidity value of 0.078 eV ≤ η ≤ 0.082 eV, indicating its stability. By IR spectroscopy, it was found that interaction between hydroxyethylcellulose and molybdenum oxide occurs through the hydroxyl group.

Obtaining new particles of biological nature is an urgent task for modern biotechnologies development. Virions of plant viruses, virus-like particles assembled from a single viral protein, as well as structurally modified particles formed by heating viral particles in aqueous solution, have recently found a number of applications in development of vaccines, carriers for biologically active molecules, and use as antitumour drugs. Previously, we studied the structural transition process into spherical particles of tobacco mosaic virus rod-shaped by atomic force microscopy. In this work, we consider the stepwise structural transition of filamentous potato virus X into spherical particles at increasing temperature, and study the dependence of the formation of structurally modified particles on duration of heating and concentration of virus particles.

The study results of the effect of the ion treatment time of an Al₂O₃ thin–film coating formed on a silicon substrate on the magnitude of residual stresses in the film-substrate interface are presented. Ion etching of the film is carried out by a Penning ion source with argon ions. The interrelation between the substrate shape and the level of mechanical stresses after processing the Al₂O₃ coating with an ion source is shown for the first time. The negative effect of processing the dielectric Al₂O₃ coating with a high-energy argon ion flow on the appearance of the film is shown.