Special Issue "Hard Materials: Advances in Synthesis and Understanding"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Natalia Dubrovinskaia
Laboratory of Crystallography, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany
E-Mail: Natalia.Dubrovinskaia@uni-bayreuth.de
Phone: 33
Fax: 05

Dear Colleagues,

The hard materials become key elements in modern technologies, such as energy, medicine, transport, communication and electronics. Due to advanced methods of synthesis and the synergy of physical, chemical and engineering techniques for investigations of materials properties, a number of novel hard and superhard materials have been obtained and characterised in recent decade. Many of novel bulk superhard materials are products of the high pressure - high temperature synthesis. Tuning synthesis parameters provides a great potential to vary technologically important thermoelastic and mechanical properties: hardness, fracture toughness, thermal stability, and wear resistance. The properties of hard materials are not always easy to explain and even less so to predict, so that exploration and development of hard and superhard materials is a highly multidisciplinary scientific field challenging both experimenters and theoreticians. In this special issue we aim at covering recent progress and novel trends in various fields of research on hard materials and invite papers reflecting methodological, practical, theoretical, as well as applied aspects of the research on a wide diversity of materials ranging from thin films and single crystals to nanocrystalline and composite materials with particular properties (with emphasis on superconductivity, magnetic and/or electronic ones). Papers covering development in hardness measurements (microhardness testing and nanoindentation), advanced synthesis techniques, and non-traditional superhard materials are of particular interest.

Submission

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. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as 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 refereed through a 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 monthly 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 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs).

• advanced hard materials
• synthesis of hard materials
• ab initio predictions of superhard materials
• hardness measurements
• hard thin films
• hard surface coatings
• nanoindentation technique
• diamond borides,
• nitrides
• carbides
• nanocrystalline materials