EXTENDED PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY

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The choice for natural sciences rooted in Edgar's awareness of humanities being ideologically constrained in the Soviet Union. Yet he was forced to cease his studies even in the field of chemistry during the Stalinist repressions of 1949, because of the former wealth of the family.

From 1951 E. Siliņš worked at the Central Laboratory of the Riga Electric Machinery Plant (RER). Here, E. Siliņš for the first time could perform actual scientific research, mostly in the field of atomic spectroscopy. In 1958, his two messages were included in the X All-Union Spectroscopy Conference in Lvov. In total, Edgars Siliņš published 26 scientific and technical papers in the field of atomic and molecular spectroscopy during his years at RER, as well as 16 technical and technological publications of other kind. During the "Khrushchev Thaw", Edgars Siliņš was finally able to enroll (in 1957) and graduate (in 1961) the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Latvia. In 1962, he began his extra-mural studies for the Candidate of Sciences degree (equivalent to PhD) at the S. Vavilov State Optical Institute in Leningrad and defended his Thesis in June 1965. His Candidate Thesis topic was influence of plasma and contact discharge on the emission spectra of metal atoms (doctoral advisor K. Taganov).

In 1963, the founder of Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis Solomons Hillers proposed to create a joint research group of chemists and physicists in Riga to study electro physical properties of organic compounds. Edgars Siliņš was appointed to lead this research group. Between 1963 and 1967 he was a researcher at the Laboratory of Semiconductor Physics Problems at the State University of Latvia, but from 1967 he headed the newly created Laboratory of Physics of Organic Semiconductors (later renamed as the Laboratory of Organic Solid State Physics and Molecular Electronics) at the Institute of Physical Energetics, Latvian Academy of Sciences. Until 1975, a new model was developed under his lead, describing the physical nature of local structure-determined charge-carrier trapping centers in organic molecular crystals. The most important publication of this period (71 Scopus citations) started a long-lasting collaboration with professor of the New York University Martin Pope and professor of Japanese National Institute of Natural Sciences Hiroo Inokuchi, later also with professor of the University in Plzen Stanislav Nešpůrek.

In the following years, Edgars Siliņš focused his research on the problems of organic solid state energetics and proved that the conventional band theory is inapplicable to molecular solids. A new, improved phenomenological model was developed to describe these peculiarities. In 1978, these conclusions were summarized in a monograph, and one year later E. Siliņš defended his Doctor of Science thesis (equivalent to the Western habilitation) on the topic. In 1980 the improved and updated monograph was published in English by Springer Publishing in West Germany, now it was also available to the Western readers. This is one of the most cited work of Edgars Siliņš in his whole life (218 citations as of June 2017), while Siliņš himself still remains the most cited Latvian scientist.

In the early 1980s, Edgars Siliņš got particularly interested in photogeneration mechanisms in organic semiconductors. The research in the field was continued after visiting and working at the Institute for Molecular Science in Okazaki, Japan in 1985. In 1985 Edgars Siliņš published his molecular polaron model in polyacene crystals, but in 1986 together with his Czech colleague V. Čapek researched the charge carrier transport mechanism. This work later resulted in monograph in Russian “Electronic Processes in Organic Molecular Crystals” that was published in 1988 in Riga and another monograph in English “Organic Molecular Crystals: Interaction, Localization and Transport Phenomena”, published by the AIP Press in the United States in 1994.

In early 1990s Edgars Siliņš supervised research in the field of molecular electronics.

The key to the scientific achievements of Professor Siliņš lays not only in his extremely high personal qualification as a scientist but also in his managerial and teaching capacities. He has a number of talented students who followed his path in science with remarkable results. Edgars Siliņš guiding credo in life and science has been the Niels Bohr complementarity principle: “Great Truth is a Truth whose opposite is also a Great Truth”.

Total number of Edgars Siliņš publications and scientific reports exceeds 200, in addition to six monographs, presentations at over 20 scientific conferences and more than 50 lectures in the scientific establishments abroad. He has 710 citations listed in Scopus and h-index of 15. Edgars Siliņš was a member of American Physical Society as well as other international scientific and humanitarian organizations. Since 1992 he was a full member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences.

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Edgars Siliņš passed away on 26 May 1998 and was buried in Līgatne Cemetery. In 1998 the Latvian Academy of Sciences established the Edgars Siliņš Prize in physics. In 2004, in front of the Institute of Physical Energetics (Aizkraukles St. 21, Riga) a monument to Edgars Siliņš was erected, designed by sculptors Juris Rapa and Zigrīda Rapa.