Advances and Innovations in Glancing Angle Deposition and Related Nanostructures: Second Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Glancing Angle Deposition (GLAD) is a versatile and powerful physical vapor deposition technique for fabricating three-dimensional and architected nanostructures with precisely controlled geometry, porosity, and anisotropy. By tilting the substrate relative to the incoming vapor or ion flux and optionally introducing azimuthal rotation, dynamic shadowing, and templating, GLAD enables the rational design of nanocolumns, helices, zigzag structures, and other complex morphologies that are difficult or impossible to achieve using conventional thin-film deposition methods.

GLAD-fabricated nanostructures exhibit unique mechanical, electrical, magnetic, optical, and chemical properties arising from their tailored geometry and nanoscale organization. These attributes have enabled a broad range of applications, including optical and plasmonic coatings, chemical and biological sensors, catalysis, micro- and nanoelectronics, photonic and chiral devices, biomedical interfaces, energy conversion and storage systems, and MEMS/NEMS technologies. Despite significant progress, fundamental questions remain regarding growth mechanisms, structure–property relationships, scalability, and integration with emerging materials and device platforms.

This Special Issue of Nanomaterials aims to provide a comprehensive forum for recent advances in GLAD, spanning fundamental growth physics, materials design, characterization, modeling, and applications. We particularly encourage contributions that bridge fabrication with functional performance and that explore emerging directions in hybrid nanomanufacturing and data-driven materials design.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

• Fundamental mechanisms of GLAD and oblique angle deposition growth
• Novel nanostructures, architectures, and materials enabled by GLAD
• Structural, optical, electrical, magnetic, chemical, and mechanical characterization
• Structure–property–function relationships in GLAD nanomaterials
• Optical, plasmonic, chiral, and metamaterial effects
• Hybrid fabrication strategies (e.g., GLAD combined with ALD, CVD, etching, or templating)
• Modeling, simulations, and numerical calculations of growth and properties
• Sensors, catalysis, energy, biomedical, photonic, and MEMS/NEMS applications
• Scalable fabrication, integration, and device-level demonstrations

We welcome both original research articles and comprehensive review papers that advance the understanding and application of GLAD-based nanomaterials.

Prof. Dr. Yiping Zhao
Prof. Dr. Jitendra P. Singh
Prof. Dr. Tansel Karabacak
Guest Editors

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-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials 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 2400 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.

• glancing angle deposition (GLAD)
• oblique angle deposition
• nanostructured thin films
• 3D nanostructures
• nanoengineering
• surface morphology
• optical and plasmonic materials
• sensors
• catalysis
• photonic devices
• energy materials
• MEMS/NEMS
• vapor deposition
• controlled growth
• hybrid nanofabrication
• simulations and modelling

• Advances and Innovations in Glancing Angle Deposition and Related Nanostructures in Nanomaterials (6 articles)