oa Editorial (Thematic Issue: Novel Solid Nanocomposites for Advanced Applications)

The nanocomposites are innovative materials, which have gained great interest because of the opportunity for considerable improvement of the material properties like strength, modulus and dimensional stability, electrical conductivity, thermal stability, chemical resistance, surface appearance, optical clarity. Due to the specific structure, they could have new properties, which are unknown in the composed materials. Thus, the nanocomposites promise new applications in many fields as mechanically reinforced lightweight components, nanoelectromechanical systems, non-linear optics, energy conversion and storage, sensors and other systems in the defense, aerospace and automotive sectors. Usually, the nanocomposite structure is a matrix-filler combination, where a non-nanocrystalline matrix of one material is filled with nanoparticles, nanofibers or fragments surrounded and bound together as discrete units of an another material. Nanonanocomposite materials, where the size of all constituent material grains is in the nanometre range, exist as well. Amongst the large variety of nanocomposites, this issue is focused on novel solid nanocomposites for advanced applications having an inorganic component in the system such as ultra-nanocrystalline diamond/amorphous carbon composite films, nanostructured hard coatings, multi-ferric composite containing, metal matrix composites with high hardness, and enhanced wear resistance and corrosion resistance.