Amorphous Materials: Fabrication, Properties, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Amorphous materials, characterized by their lack of long-range orders in atomic structures, have garnered significant interest and found diverse applications across various fields. Fabrication techniques (such as melt-quenching, vapor deposition, sputtering, and sol–gel processes) enable the precise control of material properties, morphologies, and compositions, facilitating tailored synthesis for specific applications. These materials showcase distinct mechanical, electrical, optical, and magnetic properties compared to crystalline counterparts. For instance, the lack of grain boundaries in amorphous materials results in unique mechanical traits, such as high strength and elasticity. Moreover, amorphous materials exhibit outstanding transparency, corrosion resistance, and adjustable electronic properties, rendering them promising for applications in optics, electronics, and protective coatings. Their versatility spans multiple industries; in electronics, amorphous semiconductors are pivotal in thin-film transistors, solar cells, and displays, offering advantages in flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Similarly, biocompatible amorphous materials find utility in medicine for drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, and medical implants, while amorphous alloys are employed in aerospace, automotive, and structural applications due to their lightweight nature, high strength, and resistance to corrosion. Given the complex composition and structure of amorphous materials, a deep understanding of the correlation between chemical composition, glass structure, and mechanical properties is thus needed for developing new amorphous materials with desired properties in rational and efficient ways.

Dr. Tao Du
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Solids is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly 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 1000 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.

• amorphous materials
• disordered structure
• applications
• mechanical properties
• glass transition