[en] The impact of radiocaesium on mycorrhizal development and functioning of plant photosynthetic apparatus is considered. The possibility of mycorrhizal symbiosis application in phytoremediation of radioactively contaminated areas is analyzed. It is found that colonization of plants by AM fungus resulted to significant decrease of radiocaesium content in their aboveground parts, while it didn't have considerable impact on the radionuclide uptake by plant root system. (authors)

[en] The impact of radiocaesium on mycorrhizal development and functioning of plant photosynthetic apparatus is considered. The possibility of mycorrhizal symbiosis application in phytoremediation of radioactively contaminated areas is analyzed. It is found that colonization of plants by AM fungus resulted to significant decrease of radiocaesium content in their aboveground parts, while it didn't have considerable impact on the radionuclide uptake by plant root system. AM fungi can restrict or enhance direct root uptake of radiocaesium as well as its root to shoot translocation. Radiocaesium activity concentration was considerably lower in shoots of mycorrhizal plants as compared to nonmycorrhizal ones grown on different soil types. Plant colonization with the G. intraradices resulted in 50 - 100 % decrease of radiocaesium TF from soil to aboveground biomass and 40 - 70% reduction of its translocation from plant roots to shoots. The studied plants could be potentially cultivated within areas with moderate radiocaesium contamination levels and further used in agricultural purposes. The opposite effect was observed in case of H. annuus (sunflower), where AM colonization led to nearly 10-fold increase of ¹³⁴Cs activity in roots and shoots. This hyper-accumulating plant could be used in combination with AM fungi for radiocaesium phytoextraction from the soil. (authors)

[en] Vacuum arc deposition of a cathodes method (C-PVD) was used for deposition of multilayered coatings, based on nitrides of refractory metals, such as TiN / ZrN. Total thickness of the coatings was 11 - 19 μm, thickness of bilayers varied from 20 to 800 nm for different samples depending on different deposition conditions, such as bias potential, arc current, pressure of nitrogen in the deposition chamber. XRD, RBS, SEM, HR-TEM and STEM with local microanalysis, as well as nanoindentation were used for investigations of structure and properties of the mentioned above coatings. RBS measurements showed, that in all layers of all coatings stoichiometric nitrides TiN, ZrN were formed with an average atomic concentrations 50 at. % (respectively to the type of coatings). Fabricated coatings demonstrated good mechanical properties, such as wear resistance and adhesion to the substrate, as well as quite high hardness. (author)

[en] Multicomponent nanostructured coatings based on (TiZrNbAlYCr)N with a hardness as high as 47 GPa were obtained by cathodic arc deposition. The effect of partial nitrogen pressure P_N (with constant bias potential U_b =–200 V applied to the substrate) on the phase-composition variation, the size of crystallites, and their relation to the microstructure and hardness was investigated. An increase in the nitrogen pressure resulted in the formation of two phases with characteristic BCC (the lattice period is 0.342 nm) and FCC lattices with averaged nanocrystallite sizes of 15 and 2 nm. At a high pressure of 0.5 Pa, crystallites in the FCC phase with a lattice period of 0.437 nm grew in size to ~7 nm. The hardness of deposited coatings with larger (3.5 nm) FCC-phase crystallites and smaller (7 nm) BCC-phase crystallites was enhanced considerably.