Dear Colleagues,

Interactions of singly-charged ions with energies, from keV to several MeV, with matter have been widely represented in traditional journals and conference papers, since they were used as a basic tool for understanding ion-solid interactions for nuclear reactor studies of structural, fuel, and cladding materials, as well as ion implantation applications, such as the fabrication of semiconductor devices for micron-scale electronics, thus, enabling the study the properties of materials in the surface region (up to a few micrometers).

With the advent of new technology, including nanoelectronics, where the irradiated surface depth gets thinner than a few nanometers, specifically, low-energy, heavy, highly-charged and cluster ions have become more attractive as a main surface modification and characterization tool.

Since these ions were not fully represented in the literature, this Special Issue on “Ion Beam Materials of Applied Science” will cover the following aspects of the heavy, highly-charged and cluster ion beam materials science and technology:

- Basic and applied science of interaction of heavy, highly charged, plasma, cluster and molecular ions with matter;
- Theory, modeling and simulation studies, including ab initio, atomistic (molecular dynamics and Monte-Carlo), and finite element tools, such as Comsol; visualization tools (VMD, materials studio);
- Multiscale simulation (i.e., combination of ab initio, atomistic (molecular dynamics and Monte-Carlo) and finite element simulations for nuclear reactors, fusion, and dense plasma. 
- Combination of advanced integrated computational tools (i.e., Comsol, materials studio, HEIGHTS simulation packages) and state-of-the-art experimental devices.
- Modification of thin and ultrathin films, 2D-materials, such as graphene, MoS2, BN, etc., through the use of ion beams, and characterization using AFM, Raman, Auger, electron microscopy, laser, and synchrotron radiation;
- Theory, simulation and experiments on high-gradient vacuum breakdown in accelerators and high-voltage equipment. 
- Design and implementation of specific apparatus needed for experiments;
- The research topics include ion beam analysis techniques, such as Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA), elastic recoil detection (ERD), synchrotron radiation analysis (NEXAFS), applied to characterization of an extreme shallow surface damage; 
- Research aimed at promoting nuclear, material science, plasma research and education; 
- Basic and applied research in a wide variety of interdisciplinary fields

Prof. Zinetula (Zeke) Insepov
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• Low energy ions

• Heavy ions

• Highly-charged

• Molecular and cluster ions

• Basic and applied science of ion beam materials

• Ultrathin 2D-materials

• Graphene

• MoS2, BN

• Theory, modeling and simulation

• AFM

• Raman, Auger, electron microscopy, laser and synchrotron radiation