Director: Prof. Andris Šutka
andris.sutka@rtu.lv
Andris Šutka received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering sciences in 2012 at Riga Technical University (RTU) in Latvia after conducting research on transition metal oxide nanoparticle physical and chemical properties. His main scope of interests during the Ph.D. studies covered defect chemistry of metal oxides, chemical oxide semiconductor gas sensors and photocatalysts.
After obtaining his Ph.D., he executed postdoctoral research in Estonia at the University of Tartu (2013–2016) where he pursued his attention for suspended particle smart window devices. Currently, he is an Associate Professor at the RTU where he recently (2017) established and started to lead his structural unit – Research Laboratory of Functional Materials Technologies under the Faculty of Materials Science and Applied Chemistry. During the last five years, Andris has attracted a substantial 2.5 M euro research funding from international and national grant applications. In the summer of 2021 the research laboratory was combined with the institute of inorganic chemistry and the institute of silicate materials creating the institute of materials and surface engineering, which he is now the director of.
Currently, he is the supervisor for two Ph.D. and four postdoctoral fellows on different research topics. His research interests lie in soft triboelectric and piezoelectric materials, as well as semiconductor oxide nanomaterials for gas sensing, photochromic, photocatalytic, and antimicrobial applications.
