Photonics Finland will organize a group visit together with its members to Latvia on 17th – 20th May 2022.
Photonics in Latvia
“Smart materials and photonics” are one of five smart industries identified as a priority sectors by the Latvian government. Latvia’s world-leading high-impact research paired with well-developed commercialization and extensive industry expertise make Latvia a particularly attractive region for developing and launching projects in the smart materials and photonics sector, as shown by the sustained growth in related export and investments.
Specialization areas
– development and manufacturing of functional materials.
– photonics equipment and devices.
– thin layers and coatings.
Company highlights
You’ll come across Latvian innovations in every corner of the world and beyond with Groglass’ anti-reflective glass that displays the most precious exhibits and showcases around the world, and Sidrabe’s thin-film technologies used by NASA to coat astronaut helmets. Lightguide boasts the world’s leading optical fiber production lab and provides ~70% of all fiber optic instruments used in urology and Baltic Scientific Instruments is one of only 3 companies worldwide specializing in the development and fabrication of devices for spectrometric analysis based on semiconductor and scintillation radiation detectors.
Research
A central hub connecting science and business is University of Latvia’s (UL) Institute of Solid-State Physics (ISSP)—the top materials research and innovation center in the Baltics—and its platform Materize. The ISSP itself is home to a unique micro- and nano-technology center.
The Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis (LIOS) has developed a conceptually new approach for ensuring high emission intensities in solids. The new concept is based on the use of intermolecular electrostatic interactions in the design of luminescent molecules, well-known in organic chemistry, but not yet used in the field of optical materials.
University of Latvia’s Institute of Atomic Physics and Spectroscopy is making strides in biophotonics, working on non-invasive methods and devices for early detection of skin cancer and the classification of skin lesions, employing multispectral diffuse reflection and autofluorescence imaging combined with neural network analysis.
