Novel Phase-Change, Resistive, Ferroelectric Materials and Their Applications

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute original research articles as well as review articles to this Special Issue. Due to the increasingly significant asymmetrical development of data processing speeds between CPUs and memories, the "memory wall" problem severely restricts the overall speed improvement in computer systems. The integration of computation and storage, known as computation-in-memory (CIM), can reduce a computing system's dependence on data bandwidth, and thus, further unleash its computing power. In terms of power consumption, the proportion of memory has become increasingly significant. For example, in some high-performance servers and data center systems, memory power consumption is even becoming the main part of the system. In addition, the characteristics of memory application areas are also changing, from being primarily focused on computing to being primarily focused on storage and to the data exchange represented by "streaming media". This diversified trend in application areas also presents a challenge regarding the design of traditional memory products that aim to cover all application areas.

The development of memory technology that is faster, lower in power, higher in bandwidth, and lower in cost is urgently needed. Therefore, the development of next-generation high-density, high-speed, and low-power new memory technologies such as phase-change memory (PCRAM), resistive memory (RRAM), ferroelectric memory (FeRAM), and the corresponding embedded storage technologies has reached a highly recognized consensus in academia and industry. At the material level, this direction represents a way to redistribute computing to improve computing energy efficiency.

This Special Issue aims to offer a collection of articles describing state-of-the-art advances in the fields of novel information functional materials such as phase-change materials, resistive materials, and ferroelectric materials and their applications. This Special Issue will highlight the fundamental understanding of material properties, structures, and engineering methods to overcome the current challenges for next-generation memories. This Special Issue will also provide the latest progress and insights into forthcoming developments of these novel information functional materials and devices.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Phase-change, resistive, and ferroelectric materials;
• Nanomaterial preparation;
• Heterostructure and interface engineering;
• Correlation between structure and properties;
• Applications of nanomaterials and interfaces in different fields.

We look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Yegang Lu
Guest Editor

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Inorganics 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 2200 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.