On the 3.-6. of July, a Joint International Conference of the “Functional Materials and Nanotechnologies and Nanotechnology and Innovation in the Baltic Sea Region” FM&NT – NIBS 2022 was held in Riga, Latvia at the House of Science, Academic Centre of the University of Latvia. Our project was represented by Dr. Rünno Lõhmus and PhD student Käthi Niman.
The focus of the conference was dedicated to four main topics: Nanomaterials and technologies, Functional Materials, Green Energy and Environment, and Bioengineering materials and biotechnologies. Several lectures were held in both a larger auditorium and in parallel sessions in smaller groups. On the 4th of July, a poster session on the mentioned topics took place. Altogether there were 79 oral and 120 poster presentations. On July 5th, a panel discussion was held on the topic “From lab to fab. What it takes to make a business out of university research.”, which gave an interesting insight into what it takes to create a start-up in the scientific field.
Over the course of four days, several interesting developments in the field of nanotechnologies, functional materials, and biosensors were introduced, which might prove of use in the field of cultural heritage conservation. From thin film and colored glass solar panels to graphene-based sensors, several topics discussed in the numerous presentations sparked ideas of potential use in art and architecture conservation and restauration. As an example, in one oral presentation, given by Dr. Kestutis Staliunas, laser application widening possibilities were discussed. More in detail, in the talk “Nanostructures for intracavity spatial filtering in microlasers,” the authors proposed an interesting idea to exploit photonic microstructures (such as photonic crystals and micro-modulated thin films) to enhance the quality of spatial quality of emitted radiation in microlasers.
The conference was very useful and created many personal contacts for future potential collaboration.
