Dear Colleagues,

We kindly invite you to submit your recent works for a forthcoming Special Issue on “Multifunctional Coatings: From Protective to Bio-Applications”. Research works providing insights on coatings and thin films regarding their preparation and characterization are the main targets of this Special Issue, namely in what concerns physical, chemical, electrical, optical, electrochemical, mechanical, tribological, and magnetic properties. Research works on protection, sensing, catalytic, and bio-related behaviors and responses are welcome in this issue. Contributions on physical, chemical, and biological processes and phenomena at surfaces and/or interfaces are also welcome.

With the progress of nanotechnology and production methods, coatings today are becoming incredibly attractive materials due to the possibility for them to have a unique combination of very different properties, which may respond to a wide variety of demands and requirements, but also to an attractive set of characteristics that are economically desirable, e.g., being lighter, cheaper, more durable, and more versatile than most bulk materials. Excellent biocompatibility and thermal, electrical, chemical, and mechanical properties, together with tribological response optimization, are among some of the most attractive properties that it is possible to tailor into different kinds of coating systems and synthesis methods.

The achievement of these properties in a single coating system is the motivation behind several on-going research activities, with the combination of some of them being the driving force behind the improvement of several materials or devices and the focus of several ongoing research projects to develop what one may call new materials or multifunctional coating materials.

Several attractive multifunctional properties can be further improved and tailored by nanostructuring the coating’s structural and morphological features. Nanostructured coating materials are emerging as potential candidates to be used as multifunctional materials in applications such as decorative, protective, biomaterials, (bio)sensing, nanoelectronics, etc. In recent years, considerable research has been focused on the design and production of these nanoscale materials, focusing on the control of the particular composition and morphological and structural features in order to tailor their physical, chemical, and other properties, which may allow new and/or improved responses to a set of requirements for a given application or device.

Synthesis methods such and physical- and/or chemical-based vapor deposition methods are well-known techniques that are commonly used, but recently, several other methods, including hybrid ones, have been used to prepare these multifunctional coating materials, allowing a wide range of possibilities to tailor a particular coating system to respond to a desired set of requirements. By creating new properties, functional and multifunctional coatings can meet the most difficult standards of users, especially in high-tech industries.

Considering this growing need for multifuctionality in order to respond to the increasing demands of industry and materials/device responses, this Special Issue aims to collect articles reporting on recent developments dealing with preparative methods, design, properties, structure, characterization, as well as promising applications of multifunctional coatings.

Prof. Dr. Daniel Munteanu
Prof. Dr. Filipe Vaz
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 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. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). 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 2600 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.

• multifunctional coatings and thin films
• synthesis
• simulation and modeling
• structure, morphology, and properties
• materials engineering
• characterization tools and techniques
• multilayered and composite 2D materials
• hybrid structures
• applications
• nanostructures and nanomaterials
• energy harvesting
• multifunctionality
• surface plasmons and plasmonics
• sensors
• decorative coatings
• graphene