The Next Level of Advanced Interface Research

Abstract

With the first issue in 2018, Advanced Materials Interfaces is entering its 5th year as a journal publishing top-level research on interface technologies and effects – a good occasion to take a look back. Since its launch as an independent journal in 2014, Advanced Materials Interfaces has established its role as an outlet for high-quality research on surface and interface science. In this short time, it has already attracted many important, highly interdisciplinary contributions from recognized experts from all over the world. The number of submissions has been steadily increasing over the years and only in 2017 Advanced Materials Interfaces received already more than 1600 manuscripts and published almost 400 articles. We are very grateful to all authors and to our reviewers and Editorial Board Members who ensure that only the very best articles are finally selected for publication. The impact of the journal is also reflected in the first full Impact Factor of 4.279 (2017 Journal Citation Reports) confirming the influence and importance of the journal within the scientific community. A selection of top-cited articles in 2017 can be found in Table 1. Some articles have drawn additional attention via news and social media platforms, which is reflected by their high Altmetric score. A selection of articles that had an exceptionally broad impact in media in 2017 is shown in Table 2. One of the journal's highlights represent the Special Issue of the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces – Perspectives in Interface Research – which was guest edited by Helmuth Möhwald and the Special Issue on Advances in Chemical Vapor Deposition dedicated to Michael Hitchman and guest edited by Francis Maury et al. In 2018 Advanced Materials Interfaces continues presenting high-level publications to its readers. For example, the next special issues to be released this year will deal with “Interfacial Engineering of Perovskite Solar Cells” guest edited by E. Kymakis and “Self-Healing Materials” guest edited by N. De Belie et al. We are particularly happy to celebrate our 5th volume. On this occasion we are starting an Advanced Materials Interfaces Hall of Fame series of invited-only review articles from the top scientists in the field. These selected contributions will be published in the upcoming issues of this year. Please watch out for the first two reviews published in this issue by J. Werner et al. on “Perovskite/Silicon Tandem Solar Cells: Marriage of Convenience or True Love Story? – An Overview” and by Y. Qi et al. on” Recent Advances in Spiro-MeOTAD Hole Transport Material and Its Applications in Organic-Inorganic Halide Perovskite Solar Cells”. The articles will be marked to indicate that they are part of the series, and will be collected into a special virtual issue online, to be highlighted on our Advanced Science News service (www.advancedsciencenews.com). With the great development during the past years, new journals have joined the “Advanced” family, so you should not miss out on exploring those as well. Of particular note are Advanced Theory and Simulations, Advanced Quantum Technologies, and Advanced Therapeutics launched in 2017. We are confident that those journals will make a strong contribution to the scientific effort as well. And… there is more good news for 2018! Starting from January 2018 all journals of the Advanced Family as well as the Macro­molecular Journals will waive the cost for printing colour figures! We look forward to sharing much more exciting interface-related research with you this year and hope that you will enjoy reading the articles of the present issue. On behalf of the editorial team,