Trojan Materials in Science, Technology and Biomedicine: Invisibility Leading to Success
A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Physics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2025 | Viewed by 16
Special Issue Editors
Interests: strongly correlated electron systems; magnetic nanostructures, techniques and devices for biomedical applications
Interests: metamaterials; nanophotonics; plasmonics; slow and stopped light
Interests: soft matter; liquid crystals; interface phenomena; phase transitions; critical phenomena
Interests: magnetic and radio-labeled nanoparticles in diagnostic and therapeutic biomedical applications; hemocompatibility
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Natural and artificial materials commonly behave as ‘Trojan horses’ to efficiently protect their cargo from being detected by any outside observer. Probably the most popular paradigm comes from the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation and relates to the biochemically complex mechanism of camouflage; some living organisms, for instance chameleons, have the property to adapt the absorption/emission pattern of their skin to that of the surrounding environment. A less known paradigm originates from the immunology of the microworld; specific pathogens, for instance viruses, can biochemically remodel their surface to deceive physiological cells, thus recruiting them as host carriers to invade the living organism. Science, when biomimetic, greatly benefits from this; relatively simple and quite complex materials such as photonic crystals, magnetic and dielectric micro/nano-particles, plasmonic nanomaterials and liquid crystals, can be farther empowered through their combination with biological substances and cellular units on demand, for the construction of new kinds of artificial (bio)metamaterials. This Special Issue is dedicated to artificial (bio)metamaterials which succeed thanks to their invisibility (electromagnetic, thermal, biochemical and immunological), and are thus termed Trojan materials. Electromagnetic invisibility cloaks, thermal cloaks, and immunologically nonresponsive magnetic and dielectric agents for diagnostic and therapeutic biomedical applications are based on photonic crystals, magnetic and dielectric micro/nano-particles, plasmonic nanomaterials, and liquid crystals, in pristine form or combined with biological substances and cellular units. These categories, and other relevant ones, are considered in this Special Issue.
Dr. Dimosthenis Stamopoulos
Dr. Kosmas Tsakmakidis
Dr. Lelidis Ioannis
Dr. Maria Karageorgou
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- electromagnetic invisibility cloaks
- optical invisibility cloaks
- thermal invisibility cloaks
- immunological invisibility cloaks
- metamaterials
- biometamaterials
- biomimetic camouflage
- multi-spectral camouflage
- immune camouflage
- immune non-responsive diagnostic agents
- immune non-responsive therapeutic agents
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