Fall season

The year’s not over yet

After a busy summer season on Materials Today, I am happy to be moving into the fall season; to cool off in more ways than one. In my next editorial I’ll be able to say a little more about what we have planned for Materials Today in 2014, but I’ll come to that in good time. . . But speaking of 2014, I’d like to thank all of you that entered our annual cover competition. The winning images will be selected shortly and will not only be featured on one of the 2014 covers of Materials Today, but the winning authors will also be contributing to the journal with a short article explaining the science behind the image. In this issue, Zolotukhin and Obraztsov reveal the details behind the forest-like nanographite species featured on the cover.

Also coming up this fall: for those of you attending the 2013 MRS Fall meeting, do visit us at the Elsevier booth. And speaking of conferences, you can now submit posters and register for our next Virtual Conference, which will focus on biomaterials. Just visit http://www.materialstoday.com/virtualconference/materialstoday-virtual-conference-biomaterials-2013 to register and get involved. There is also still time to register for the 2013 Nano Today conference, taking place later in December: visit www.nanotoday.com for more information.

Online this month, we have a new webinar, in association with Bruker entitled Advanced materials analysis with micro-XRF for SEM. Head over to http://tinyurl.com/movd6mz to register now for free. You’ll also find the usual collection of blogs and podcast interviews.

To begin this issue, Brian Owens discusses the famous pitch-drop experiment: which may well have dropped by the time you are reading this. In the reviews, Andrey Rogach and colleagues look at innovative developments in quantum dot field effect transistors on the path to commercial grade electronic components. Next, Seth Darling et al. look at the role of solvent additives in high-efficiency organic solar cells. Continuing with organic materials, Virginia Cadiz and co-workers consider the use of vegetable oil to create renewable polymeric materials in applications ranging from paints to medicine. Finally, Jordan Brocious and Eric Potma introduce us to four-wave mixing microscopy, for visualizing a broad range of micro- and nano-structured materials.

Until next time, we hope you enjoy this issue of Materials Today.