About Multifunctional Materials

Multifunctional materials are any material or material-based system which has been designed to perform multiple tasks through judicious combinations of structural and non-structural functions. In these material systems, functions are participating, concurrently or sequentially. They can be implemented on the same length scale or hierarchically organized. Multifunctional materials can deliver system-level efficiency beyond their traditional counterparts.

Mission statement

Integrating almost independent functions in one material system is a demanding scientific challenge and at the same time essential for enabling modern applications. Multifunctional Materials^TM (MFM) is a multidisciplinary journal uniquely designed to serve an emerging field that now connects the materials science, physics, chemistry, bioscience and engineering communities, and translational multifunctional sciences. As a highly selective journal, the primary aim of MFM is to publish original research of the highest quality, with the expectation for lasting scientific and technological impact. Submissions that do not significantly advance the field in general will not be acceptable. Given the strict criteria for acceptance, the Editorial Board anticipate that only a small proportion of submissions to MFM will meet these high standards, and therefore the number of published articles will be limited. While this is a challenging ambition, it is one we feel the journal’s rapidly growing community is looking for, and one that together we can achieve.

Submissions that do not meet MFM’s strict acceptance criteria may be transferred at the discretion of the journal’s editors (with author approval) to other relevant journals in the IOP portfolio for consideration.

Papers submitted to MFM should focus on new concepts of multifunctional materials, including designing multifunctional materials; materials in life sciences and biomaterials; self-healing and remodelling materials; materials for sustainability and energy; actuators, sensors, flexible electronics, and wearables; materials for robotics; advanced manufacturing; and metamaterials and multimaterial systems.

• High standards: rigorous peer review from IOP Publishing’s global network of expert reviewers, with high-quality online production of published work and the support of a top-level editorial board.
• Fast publication: we are committed to providing you with a quick, professional service to ensure rapid first decision, acceptance and publication. Once accepted, your article will be accessible to readers within 24 hours and will include a citable DOI.
• Maximised visibility and impact.
• International promotion: wider media coverage through IOP’s award-winning journalistic service.
• Open access publishing options: compliant with all major funding bodies’ requirements.
• Track the impact of your article: use of Altmetrics to capture wider usage of content online.
• Society owned: any profits generated by IOP Publishing are used by the Institute of Physics to support science and scientists in both the developed and developing world.

MFM welcomes submissions of the following article types:

• Letters: outstanding concise articles, reporting important, new and timely developments. These articles should be deserving of priority review, and you are required to upload a justification statement along with your submission.
• Papers: reports of high-quality original research with conclusions representing a significant advance in the field.
• Special issue articles: invited articles, which will form a special collection of papers on a specific theme. When asked to select “Article Type” on the submission system, please select “Special Issue Article”. Then select the special issue you’re submitting to in the drop down box that appears.
• Perspectives: commissioned brief commentaries that highlight the impact and wider implications of new research reported in MFM.
• Topical Reviews: written by leading researchers in their fields, these articles present the background to and overview of a particular field, and the current state of the art. Topical review articles are typically invited by the Editorial Board.
• Roadmap: a collection of short 2-3 page perspectives on a topic. Each section has a different author(s), and the sections are combined together into one article for publication. Roadmaps capture the breadth of the hot topics in the field, and, as opposed to a Review article, they are more forward looking. Each perspective should look at the history and status of the topic, current and future challenges, and advances in science and technology needed to address the challenges.
• Comments: comment or criticism on work previously published in the journal. These are usually published with an associated reply.

Submitting authors must address the following questions in their cover letter:

• What is the conceptual novelty and impact of the work relating specifically to multifunctional research?
• How does this work advance on existing research?
• Which other aspects in this work are also considered conceptual advancements of interest to the community?

To ensure that the journal’s very strict editorial criteria are upheld, every submission will be preliminarily assessed by the Editors-in-Chief for suitability, and individual editorial board members may be consulted for reviewer selection and the final editorial decision.

We work with our authors to help make their work as easy to discover as possible. MFM is currently included in the following abstracting and discovery services:

• Baidu Scholar
• Chemical Abstracts Service
• CNKI
• Ei Compendex
• Inspec
• J-Gate
• JST
• MyScienceWork
• NASA Astrophysics Data System
• Naver Academic
• R Discovery
• Scilit
• Scopus
• Semantic Scholar
• Wanfang Data
• x-mol