Hard Materials: Advances in Synthesis and Understanding

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.

Prof. Dr. Natalia Dubrovinskaia
Guest Editor