Dear Colleagues,

Launched in 2008, Materials has provided readers with high-quality content edited by active researchers in materials science for 15 years by sustainable, open-access and outstanding editorial service. Today, the published papers receive more than 1,500,000 views per month, with readers in more than 150 countries and regions.

Here, a Special Issue entitled “Recent Advances in Quantum Materials” is being opened in order to celebrate the 15^th anniversary of the journal.

Quantum materials resort on carriers (photons, electrons) of physical interactions and principles of quantum mechanics to transform diverse sectors, from sensing and telecommunications to healthcare and energy technologies, to name a few. This Special Issue invites basic and applied research contributions on emerging phenomena, arising from the coherent coupling of light and topological matter or the correlated interaction of fundamental degrees of freedom (charge, spin, orbital) and the lattice, all requiring the development of quantum mechanical models to describe their unique behaviours. 

Realisations span from nanoscale to bulk material classes, including but not limited to complex magnets (spin liquids/ices/glasses), superconductors, and multiferroics that are further expanded to embrace fascinating topological insulators, van der Waals semiconductors, as well as Dirac and Weyl semimetals, where the extraordinary effects of quantum mechanical interactions at the atomic scale lead to exotic physical properties.

Original research works are invited on theoretical predictions (ab initio calculations, DFT atomistic modelling) that accelerate the discovery of remarkable quantum materials, capable of supporting experimental approaches, elaborating on synthesis aspects (bottom-up and top-down growth), while explaining how structure and dynamics (e.g., neutron and synchrotron X-ray scattering, spectroscopy at ultrafast time-scales, solid-state NMR etc.) at the atomic level respond to external perturbations (e.g., light, magnetic, electrical stimuli). Ultimately, proof-of-principle works are welcomed that exploit the findings in potentially new types of quantum-enabled, electronic and photonic devices not feasible with conventional materials.

Submissions of the most forward-looking research would highlight the level of complexity in the field, conveying the requirements for sophisticated, powerful tools and methods necessary not only to design and grow, but also to understand and manipulate quantum-scale materials.

Dr. Alexandros Lappas
Dr. George Kopidakis
Dr. Emil Bozin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts of research articles can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2300 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• 2D materials
• low-dimensional metal oxides
• transition metal dichalcogenides
• Kagome lattices
• chiral crystals
• perovskites
• unconventional superconductors
• geometrical frustration
• topological states
• fluctuations in quantum matter
• spintronics
• photonic nanostructures
• quantum dots