The Journal of Materials Chemistry's latest theme issue, on anisotropic nanomaterials, has been published. The issue's guest editor is Luis Liz-Marzan of the University of Vigo, Spain.

Commenting on the significance of the subject chosen for the theme issue, Liz-Marzan said "Size control in the nanometre scale has been achieved for a wide range of materials. However, during the past 5 years, a large amount of research has been devoted to control the shape of nanomaterials, since it has been observed that in most cases it has a much more profound effect than size on materials properties. For this reason, large developments of device design and fabrication are expected to arise from anisotropic nanomaterials. Although the scope of the issue was in principle rather broad, the reader will find that there is a clear bias toward anisotropic nanoparticles, which is probably the area where the largest development is taking place." 

Luis Liz-Marzan

He continued: "The authors contributing to this themed issue are at the absolute forefront of the field and have largely contributed to its development. Not only well-established leaders have been invited, but also young researchers who have already delivered important contributions to the field and are pushing very strongly with their recently established groups."

"I strongly encourage the J. Mater. Chem. readers to pay attention to this selection of papers, in order to get a good insight about the state of the art in the field of anisotropic nanomaterials," Liz-Marzan wrote in his editorial.