Optical Characterizations of Gels

Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue on the topic of “Optical Characterizations of Gels” in the journal Gels.

Over the last several decades, different optical characterization methods play important roles in the development of physical and materials science. The majority of these optical technologies have the advantage of non-destructive evaluation capability, facilitating in situ measurement during transient and dynamic process, which is extremely important in materials science, especially in non-equilibrium states. Abundant information in gels can be obtained from different optical measurements, including chemical composition, surface/bulk morphology, dynamics, phase behavior, structural information, and mechanical properties. This Special Issue will report cutting-edge research in the optical characterization of polymeric and colloidal gels, including the technological development of optical characterization methods and new discoveries in gel and soft material sciences. The Special Issue will cover the comprehensive collections of work including, but not limited to, the characterization and development of gels made by diffraction/scattering techniques (X-ray scattering, static/dynamic light scattering, neutron scattering, electron diffraction, etc.), microscopic techniques (optical microscopy, electronic microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, etc.), and spectroscopy techniques (infrared (IR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet–visible (UV/Vis) spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-Ray spectroscopy, etc.). 

Research and review articles covering the above topics or other relevant topics are welcomed for this Special Issue of Gels.

Dr. Tetsuharu Narita
Dr. Jianzhu Ju
Prof. Dr. Costantino Creton
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. Gels 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.

• gels
• characterization
• scattering
• spectroscopy
• microscopy