Active Functional Materials and Wearable Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Functional materials have recently attracted considerable interest from researchers from academy and industry who are working towards flexible, stretchable and wearable applications. Flexible sensors, actuators and electronics have been developed owing to the unique mechanical robustness of functional soft materials that have high flexibility, stretchability and wearability. Examples of these functional materials include but are not limited to carbon nanomaterials (e.g. carbon nanotube and graphene), polymers (e.g. polypyrrole and PEDOT materials), metal nanostructures (e.g. silver and coper nanowires) as well as hybrid materials.  

In addition, diverse approaches to structural design and advanced fabrication technologies enable the development of smart structures and devices (e.g. bulked and prestressed structures, and mesh, coil, sponge and wavy structures) that can be stretched and work stably under mechanical disturbances. Functional materials for flexible electronics and wearable technologies can be employed in a wide range of applications, including wearable heathcare, flexible displays, solid-state electronics, sensors (e.g. physical and gas sensors), nanogenerators and solar cells that are thin, lightweight, robust, bendable and conformable to human bodies.

This Special Issue highlights and discusses the modern trend of functional materials and their applications for flexible, stretchable and wearable devices, including fundamental research into materials, fabrications and processes, as well as the development of potential flexible and stretchable wearable applications.

It is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript to this Special Issue. Submissions of communications, full papers, and reviews are all welcome.

Dr. Toan Dinh
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. 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.