1. Escola de Ciências
Departamento de Física
Campus de Azurém
4800-058 Guimarães
Recommendation letter
For the past two Years, Ramona Adochite has been working in the Physics Department of
Minho University, in the group of functional coatings, under my supervision. Her work was
centred in the development of multifunctional thin films and coatings. For the different
projects she was involved, Ramona Adochite has focused the research on the use and
exploitation of the main deposition technique that we have used – reactive magnetron
sputtering, where she has been performing several optimization routines in order to
achieve a very wide range of thin films, with varied physical, chemical and
mechanical/tribological behaviours. Her contribution towards the development of the thin
film laboratories in our department was extremely positive and resulted in a reasonable
number of publications in which she was the main contributor. For that, the Physics
Department is very appreciated for her contribution.
Beyond his work in the development of the thin film deposition technique, Ramona
Adochite is being using a significant amount of characterization techniques, where, for her
outstanding progress, I would like to mention two of them: the structural analysis carried
out by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the optical behaviour characterization, carried out by
spectrophotometry. Beyond these, I should also mention all mechanical and compositional
characterizations in which she is also working very often.
Another important aspect that I should mention about Ramona Adochite is related with her
extremely serious scientific character and her friendship towards her colleagues. In the first
of these characteristics, I should mention my appreciation due to the fact that her constant

2. focus on the particular details of any results we were obtaining allowed us to have very
positive index of publications, but above all the good acceptance by the scientific
community in every conference or journal that we presented our work. It is always a rule of
thumb to discuss over and over again every single detail that Ramona Adochite has some
doubts. This shows very mature character and gives her the necessary qualities to
undertake any project and, especially, to coordinate of assist an ambitious research team.
Regarding the second characteristic, I should mention that it is always difficult to arrive in a
different country and unknown laboratory and start a certain research subject. We have all
experienced this, and we are aware of the difficulties. Well, Ramona Adochite succeed this
very easily, and she was seen as one of us very quickly and everyone sees her as an
important source of knowledge, and a person to look for whenever something is wrong in
the deposition system, or a particular problem seems to be present in the obtained results
of a particular research program, even far from her own.
So, and in summary, I could only say that she met and exceeded greatly my expectations,
and brought so much to the Laboratory that I can only recommend her to this application
she is searching. Her natural enthusiasm, intelligence, and ability to overcome the problems
that arrive in any research program were recognized by everyone in the laboratory and
make her an excellent researcher in our Institution. Her earnest desire to understand the
physical phenomena and her great interest in enhancing her knowledge make her, in my
most sincere opinion, an invaluable team member.
For all this, it is no doubt that Ramona Adochite deserves my complete recommendation.
Sincerely,
Filipe Vaz
Associate Professor