Local Structure Characterization for Complex Functional Materials

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to provide a platform for community discussion about the recent progress and futuristic perspective of local structure characterization in complex functional materials. The local perspective of the microscopic structure plays a critical role in determining the properties of a wide range of functional materials, e.g., the polarization behavior in ferroelectric materials, ion transportation behavior in energy story materials, coordination chemistry in catalysis materials, and magnetic anisotropy in low-dimensional magnetic systems, among others. Characterization of the local structure of functional materials thus becomes an imperative task in pursuit of better understanding the structure–property link, aiming to provide reliable guidance principles for designing better-performing functional materials. As the exploration space further extends to complex function materials, there emerges an increasing demand for comprehensive characterization of the local structure. Such a comprehensive effort is expected to involve the application of combined experimental characterization, theoretical calculation, and potentially up-to-date machine learning techniques to yield a unique and complete picture of the underlying local structure of complex functional materials.

Dr. Yuanpeng Zhang
Guest Editor

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• local structure
• complex functional materials
• total scattering
• comprehensive modeling
• structure-property link