Advanced Research in Semiconductor Materials and Devices

Dear Colleagues,

Semiconductor materials are the cornerstones of current and future optoelectronic technologies. Recently, new and effective materials have been designed for specific devices based on their unique physical, thermal, mechanical, electrical, magnetic, and optical characteristics. The requirements regarding increasing energy demand, industrialization, and urbanization set a priority for new cost- and energy-efficient devices, which in turn opens new avenues for materials research.

In this regard, numerous new candidate materials have been proposed, which have reduced dimensions in order to achieve the ultimate efficiency of functional devices. For example, extensive research has been devoted to developing graphene nanoribbons, reduced graphene oxide (rGO), transition metal dichalcogenides (i.e., MoS₂, MoSe₂, MoTe₂, WS₂, and WSe₂), g-C₃N₄, metal oxide nano-films (TiO₂, ZnO, Ta₂O₅, Nb₂O₅, WO₃, Bi₂O₃, etc.), and 2D Van der Waals heterostructures, etc., as well as organic semiconductors. This was also predominantly boosted by the intervention of graphene, a metallic atomic-sized 2D material, which spreads to form low-dimensional (1D and 2D) semiconductor structures that replace their bulk counterparts.

Beyond cutting-edge electro-technology, there is immense materials research devoted to improving the chemical activities and capabilities of traditional materials in the direction of catalytic performance and tunable work function achieved by designing hetero architectures, porous structures, large specific surface areas, selective and active sites, surface functionality, composite materials, and so on.

This Special Issue is devoted to collecting excellent research contributions and review articles on a broad range of topics related to semiconducting materials and devices, but not limited to the following:

1. Preparation, fabrication, synthesis, epitaxial growth, and optimization of semiconducting materials, including quantum materials, nanoparticles, nanostructures, thin films, and organic semiconductors.
2. Semiconductor materials for energy and environmental applications, including photovoltaics, storage materials, batteries, hydrogen generation, fuel cells, water splitting, catalysis, and photocatalysis.
3. Semiconductor materials for optical applications, such as plasmonic nanostructures, hybrid plasmonic devices, hot-carrier generation, plasmon-induced field enhancement, LEDs and OLEDs, photonic crystals, etc.
4. Semiconductor materials for electronic applications, including field-effect transistors, metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET), integrated devices, organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), bipolar junction transistors, and p-n junctions.
5. Semiconductor materials for Internet of Things (IoT) devices including smart home appliances, medical electronics, industrial automation, autonomous vehicles, and traffic control sensors, etc.
6. Semiconductor materials modification, such as doping, structuring, surface functionalization, grafting, intercalation, porous, etc.
7. Semiconductor templates for material growth, such as Si, Ge, SiC, GaAs, metal oxides, etc.

Dr. Narmina O. Balayeva
Dr. Zamin Mamiyev
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 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. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.

• semiconductors
• plasmonics
• thin films
• organic semiconductors
• energy conversion
• photovoltaics
• photocatalysis
• transition metal dichalcogenide monolayers
• Van der Waals heterostructures