The fifteen-member committee had a challenging task of rating 176 photos entered into the Institute of Physics’ Photography Competition 2020. The photograph by Jaroslav Otta reminding of the Tetris game has become a clear winner.
Scanning electron microscopy captures a layer of black gold after modification by a laser beam dividing the layer into individual segments. The photograph ranked second was taken under a microscope by Alexey Bubnov. A polarizing optical microscope captured a suspended film for the liquid crystalline substance. The author called his photo “Eye into the World” The bronze rank was awarded to Tomáš Kocourek for his image from thin-film deposition using the "pulsed laser deposition" method, which captured the moment when the hydroxy ceratics hydroxyapatite changes into ionized plasma in a microsecond, due to the action of an ultraviolet nanosecond laser pulse.
The jury has further decided to award the fourth and fifth place to Alexey Bubnov for his photo Colour Fibres and to Ladislav Kliemeš for a view of “diamond folding” observed at an inclination of 70 ° inside a scanning electron microscope.
The sixth to tenth places are jointly occupied by Alexey Bubnov, Ladislav Fekete with a photo called Graphene Thin film wave on Si Substrate, Přemysl Fitl with a photo of a microcrater in a lithium fluoride layer, Petr Hauschwitz with a photo of Nitinol (alloy of nickel and titanium with shape memory), machined by lasers in HiLASE centre and Denys Musiienko for a photo called Limestone Pavement (solidified laser trace in a Ni-Mn-Ga alloy).