The purpose of the study was to support the selection process of the most valuable currant and gooseberry accessions cultivated in Northern Europe, in order to establish a decentralized core collection and, following the selection, to ensure sufficient genetic diversity in the selected collection. Molecular analyses of the material from nine project partners were run at seven different laboratories. The results were first analysed for each partner separately, and then combined to ensure sufficient genetic diversity in the core collection.

Electrical transport and microstructure of interfaces between nm-thick films of various perovskite oxides grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on TiO2- terminated SrTiO3 (STO) substrates are compared. LaAlO3/STO and KTaO3/STO interfaces become quasi-2DEG after a critical film thickness of 4 unit cell layers. The conductivity survives long anneals in oxygen atmosphere. LaMnO3/STO interfaces remain insulating for all film thicknesses and NdGaO3/STO interfaces are conducting but the conductivity is eliminated after oxygen annealing. Medium-energy ion spectroscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy detect cationic intermixing within several atomic layers from the interface in all studied interfaces. Our results indicate that the electrical reconstruction in the polar oxide interfaces is a complex combination of different mechanisms, and oxygen vacancies play an important role.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2007 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA, August 5 – August 9, 2007

We have investigated the correlation between microstructure, DC resistivity and magnetoresistance of SrRuO3 thin films. The films were epitaxially grown by pulsed laser deposition on (001) SrTiO3 substrates in a temperature range of 690–810°C. According to x-ray measurements, the structure of all films is a mixture of highly oriented domains of strained orthorhombic phases (ortho-I and ortho-II) with different lattice parameters. Films deposited at 780°C show a minimum resistivity (270 μΩcm at 300 K) and a maximum magnetoresistance (8% at 5 K). These films consist mainly of ortho-I phase (a=0.393 nm). Films deposited at 690°C (predominantly ortho-II) have the highest resistivity (up to 1700 μΩcm at 300 K) and lowest magnetoresistance (3% at 5K).