9. Emerging Materials
Scope
The study of emergent materials are motivated by the desire for miniaturization and performance enhancement of electronic and optoelectronic devices. Many such materials, once synthesized, reveal unexpected properties, the understanding of which require an interdisciplinary study involving physics, chemistry, and nanoengineering. A startling example in this sense is graphene, the landmark of two-dimensional, atomically-thin materials, whereas topological insulators are the lattest materials to attract considerable scientific interest. An increasing attention for practical applications as well as theoretical challenges is also drawn by superconductors and advanced magnetic materials.
In many cases it is not necessary, however, to synthesize new materials in order to respond to challenging technological demands. For instance, artificial periodic structures such as metamaterials or photonic crystals are able to manipulate electromagnetic or acoustic waves in unprecedented ways, revealing phenomena such as negative refraction or sub-wavelength guiding and focusing.
This section is dedicated to emergent, newly discovered materials and architectures with applications in optics, electronics and optoelectronics.
Topics
The topics of interest for this section include, but are not limited to, the synthesis, and theoretical and experimental studies on:
- low-dimensional materials, including the recently discovered atomically-thin materials
- new three-dimensional materials and architectures with enhanced functionalities
- metamaterials and metasurfaces for electromagnetic or acoustic wave manipulation
- photonic crystals
- surface-assisted self-assembly monolayer and multilayer structures
- advanced magnetic materials and superconductors
- topological insulators
Section Organizers
Daniela Dragoman, University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, Romania
Last updated: 07-04-2020