**2. Contributions**

As a first section, two review articles are included, representing, on one side, the previous history of developments of LSP technology [1] and, on the other, an analysis based on such developments of the prospects for the industrial implementation of the LSP technique in critical reliability applications [2]. It is needless to say that these two review papers were written by two of the most renowned experts in the LSP field—i.e., Dr. Clauer was one of the original inventors of the LSP technique at Batelle Columbus Labs. (USA) in the 1970s, and Dr. Sano was the scientist responsible for one of the most impressive research programs on the application of the LSP technique to the nuclear industry in Japan in the last 25 years.

In the second section (comprising nine full research papers), we aimed to compile as representative as possible coverage of the di fferent key aspects leading the present-day research in LSP technology and related disciplines. The result has been a collection of articles ranging from the study of fundamental physics aspects (mostly laser–plasma interaction diagnosis and plasma pressure development, respectively represented by the articles of Colón et al. [3] and Sadeh et al. [4]); passing through the application of numerical modelling to the predictive assessment of the results of the application of LSP to the most relevant present-day materials (represented by the articles of Langer et al. [5] and Angulo et al. [6]); continuing on to the theoretical and experimental analysis of the parametric space of LSP in view of realistic applications (represented by the articles of Kallien et al. [7], Troiani and Zavatta [8], and Petan et al. [9]); and, finally, arriving at two of the most advanced developments at present day in the industrial application of LSP (i.e., the articles of Le Bras et al. [10] and T. Sano et al. [11]). In short, a collection of first-rank articles covering fundamental processes, numerical modelling, microstructural and material-related issues, materials and standard specimens testing, parametric applications design, advanced LSP applications, and implementation issues has been obtained.
