At the beginning of January, the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia organized an opening of the new Research Latvia calendar and exhibition at the Āgenskalns Market in Riga to promote scientists and their achievements to wider audiences.
One of the scientists featured in the calendar and exhibition is the leading researcher of the ISSP UL and the Head of the Laboratory of Optical Materials - Dr.phys. Aleksejs Zolotarjovs. In 2022, he received the Latvian Academy of Sciences Ludvigs and Māris Jansons Prize in Physics for his doctoral thesis, “Optical properties of plasma electrolytic oxidation coatings on aluminium alloy surface” (scientific supervisor Dr. phys. Krišjānis Šmits).
Aleksejs Zolotarjovs and his colleagues carried out unique research - the first in the world to use plasma electrolytic oxidation to produce a luminescent coating. It has specific optical properties - the ability to emit the energy stored by ultraviolet and ionizing radiation as visible light, providing a long-lasting afterglow. As head of the laboratory, he is passionate about publicizing discoveries and research results and getting young physicists interested and involved in science. To achieve that, he believes creating a good atmosphere in science and labs is important.
The exhibition and Research Latvia calendar 2023 covers a wide range of fields: literature, genetics, material science, music, space, virtual reality technologies, military and veterinary medicine, biology, and physics, and they tell the story of Latvian researchers coming from different research institutions. Taken together, they showcase the strength and diversity of Latvian science.
The exhibition is free and open to anyone till January 26. It features portraits of scientists and three-minute video stories about each of them, available after scanning the QR code on the visitor’s device.
The project “Latvian Science Calendar” is being implemented within the framework of the ERDF project “Integrated national level measures for strengthening the representation of Latvian research and development interests in the European Research Area”, No. 1.1.1.5/17/1/002.
