Prof. Dr. Jorma Hölsä

Honorary Professor
of the
Institute for Low Temperature
and Structure Research
Polish Academy of Sciences
Wrocław

Professor Jorma Hölsä, born in 1952, was graduated in 1978 from the Helsinki University of Technology (presently Aalto University), Finland, and he received his PhD in 1983 also from the Helsinki University of Technology. He has been a Senior Lecturer at University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from 1987 to 1989. Then, between 1989 and 1991 he has been a Professor at the Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Chemistry. Since 1992, he has been a full professor of inorganic chemistry at University of Turku, Finland. He has been a senior fellow of the Academy of Finland in 1992, 1996-1997 and 2000-2001. Lately, he has been a visiting professor at Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Química, Brazil during the years 2010 to 2012 as well as a special visiting researcher in the Ciência Sem Fronteiras (CSF) program of the CNPq, Brazil, between 2012-2014. The research activity of J. Hölsä encompasses the wide fields of chemistry, physics and materials science of rare earths. In particular, this includes thermal behaviour of materials, luminescence and absorption spectroscopy, inelastic neutron scattering spectroscopy, simulation of the energy level schemes, simulation of the magnetic properties, X-ray and neutron powder diffraction, structure solution from powder diffraction data, synchrotron radiation spectroscopies (XANES, EXAFS, VUV), defects in solid state: persistent luminescence and thermoluminescence, preparation and characterization of nanocrystalline materials, up-conversion luminescence of nanocrystalline materials and minerals’ luminescence. After building a solid reputation as a prime expert in the field of rare earth luminescence and the simulation of the energy level schemes of trivalent rare earths, professor Hölsä started to focus on the phenomenon of persistent luminescence in the beginning of the 2000s. Since that, he has clarified the current understanding of the persistent luminescence mechanism in Eu²⁺ doped compounds introducing simplicity and physical soundness. His work has led to the discovery and elucidation of the persistent luminescence mechanisms also in Eu³⁺, Tb³⁺, Ti³⁺ and to the unveiling of the mystery of the Bologna Stone. Moreover, he has introduced the use of techniques as e.g. XANES/EXAFS and DFT calculations in the study of persistent luminescence. He has carried out his research in wide international co-operation and collaboration, e.g. with Polish, French, Czech, Spanish and Brazilian groups.

He is the author or coauthor of close to 300 scientific papers and he has given hundreds of invited lectures in different conferences and meetings as in different universities and research institutes.

His works include more than 20 papers together with scientists of the Institute of Low Temperatures and Structure Researches published in the framework of Polish -Finnish joint research projects under the agreement on scientific cooperation between the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Finland. During his visits in Wrocław besides his stays at the Institute he was visiting frequently also the Faculty of Chemistry on University of Wrocław. In result he has published together with colleagues from the University of Wrocław a dozen or so scientific publications on spectroscopy of rare-earth ions.

He has organized major international conferences on rare-earth elements (Int. Conf. on f-Elem.-2 (ICFE-2) Helsinki 1994 and Int. Conf. on f-Elem.-3 (ICFE-3), Paris 1997) and been a member of International Advisory Committees of numerous international conferences, meetings and workshops. He has also been an editor to special issues of conference proceedings.