A long road to a bright future
Authors: Bahrs Sabine , Hildebrandt Stefan 
Published: January 2015

Dear pss readers,

“This year's Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes the pioneering work of Professors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for the breakthrough developments in GaN materials and devices that enabled the field of solid state lighting. Blue LEDs have revolutionized display technology and enabled high efficiency white light sources.” said our Editorial Advisory Board member Jim Speck in response to our enthusiastic congratulations to his colleague at University of California, Santa Barbara. It was certainly an exceptional moment for a journal that has extensively documented GaN‐related research for decades. Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, then both Meijo University and Nagoya University, published in pss on dislocations and stress in AlGaN/GaN thin films, e.g. [1, 2], Hiroshi Amano repeatedly acted as a guest editor [3–5], and all three laureates together have more than a 150 articles in pss and continue to publish on the topic. Obviously, though these contributions have gathered more than 1400 citations to date, not all are “breakthroughs”. Most are documenting continuous achievements in an important and highly specialized area. But together they witness the exceptional persistence required to master the growth of GaN to the degree of perfection that enabled blue LEDs. It is an example for the amount of patient, high‐level work that is necessary to turn a brilliant idea into a widespread invention, and pss is proud to accompany such progress along the way.

Regarding today's promising trends in materials physics, we would like to showcase some of the special issues and topical sections that appeared in pss sister journals in 2014:

“Oxide materials might form the basis for the next technological revolutions” according to J. M. Knaup, T. Frauenheim, P. Broqvist, and S. Ramanathan, the guest editors of the pss (RRL) Focus issue “Functional Oxides” [6]. These materials' enhanced complexity proposes both a greater challenge and greater benefits for future electronics and energy applications, and the 3 Reviews and 20 Letters offer computational and experimental perspectives on the current understanding.

A topical section “Nanoscaled Magnetism and Applications”, guest‐edited by A. Zhukov, features contributions on magnetocaloric materials, spin relaxation, magnetization processes and magnetic nanostructures in pss (a) [7]. Another bustling topic in pss (a) are the recurring annual diamond and

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The logo of our journal assembled with blue GaN‐on‐Si LEDs (courtesy of Armin Dadgar, Otto‐von Guericke‐Universität, Magdeburg, Germany)

nanocarbon special issues, this time focused on “Advances on Diamond Surfaces and Devices” edited by B. Rezek, M. Nesládek, and K. Haenen [8], and kicked‐off by a Feature Article “Photoelectron emission from lithiated diamond” by K. M. O'Donnell, L. Ley, and others [9].

pss (b) ventured on new grounds of theoretical method development: “Computational Thermodynamics” is a joint effort of scientists from the density functional theory and CALPHAD user communities to pave the way to a connection of these two approaches of materials description. The extended Preface by T. Hickel, U. R. Kattner, and S. G. Fries and five Feature Articles ([10] and references therein) have been ranking among the most accessed articles of pss (b) ever since January.

P. Entel et al. propose a promising perspective on materials in the Special Issue “Ferroic Glasses: Magnetic, Polar and Strain Glass”, comprising 21 contributions [11]. A core topic for pss is discussed in the Feature Article “Zinc oxide – From dilute magnetic doping to spin transport” by M. Opel et al. [12], which is part of the Special Issue “Semiconductor Spintronics” guest‐edited by M. Oestreich and J. König [13].

The presentation of this and other great content in pss is possible only with the dedicated work of our editors, authors, and reviewers. Let us take the opportunity to say: Thank you.

Looking to the near future we are delighted to welcome new members to the Editorial Advisory Board:

Zexian Cao (Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing), Claudia Felser (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden, Germany), Marius Grundmann (Universität Leipzig, Germany), Ken Haenen (Universiteit Hasselt, Belgium), and S. N. Piramanayagam (A*STAR, Singapore) have agreed to join. We are much looking forward to their help and support with further strengthening pss bonds to the scientific community worldwide.

With best wishes,

Sabine Bahrs and Stefan Hildebrandt