http://www.mdpi.com/journal/materials/special_issues/thin-films/ Dear Colleagues, As a scientist, of course it is a pleasure to make new findings or to create new devices based on our own original ideas, but at the same time it should also be our duty to surprise people, and let people widely know the new science and technologies found through our research activities. From this aspect, the role that freely accessible journals like “Materials” may play cannot be overestimated. How do you answer this question, “Is our technology developed?” People have created many kinds of electronic devices based on silicon technologies, so you may answer “yes”, but here I would say “no, not enough”. If you look at yourself, you may find that we have superior “devices” in ourselves. We can see things through our eyes, we can detect sounds with our ears, we can smell with our noses, we can touch things and feel them through our skins, and above all that, we can even think. But, are we made of silicon? The answer should be, “of course not.” My PhD advisor used to say that if our brain is made of silicon, then we are actually “ishi-atama”. In Japanese, “ishi” is stone and “atama” is head, so “ishi-atama” means “too rigid”. Because our technology is “developed”, now we should be able to create “flexible” devices. Organic functional materials may play crucial roles and “self-standing thin films” can be a candidate for future electronic devices. Many materials show rich varieties of physical phenomena when they are free from substrates. As the guest editor, I am in a position to provide a brief introduction for the special issue on “self-standing thin films”. However, here I would hesitate to make any restriction on your “interpretation” on what should be discussed in this special issue, and if you allow me, I would prefer to make an announcement like this: why don’t we discuss “freely” on “self-standing thin films”? Prof. Dr. Tatsunosuke Matsui Guest Editor Submission All manuscripts should be submitted to materials@mdpi.com with a copy to the Guest Editor. 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 800 CHF per accepted paper.