Editorial

Abstract

oral presentations and 107 poster presentations were given by delegates from more than 20 countries over a four days period. Two RQ Distinguished Fellowship Awards were presented: one to Professor Frans Spaepen from Harvard University, USA and one to Professor Emeritus P. Hideo Shingu from Kyoto University, Japan, for their outstanding and long standing contributions to the research on rapidly quenched and metastable materials and the development of the field. The lectures, talks and presentations showcased the updated advances of the scientific research and technological developments in the research areas of rapidly quenched (and rapidly solidified) and other metastable materials.RQ15 has followed the tradition of publishing a special volume of papers presented at a RQ conference in a refereed journal in the field of materials science and Engineering. Understandably, much of the research presented at RQ15 had been recently published prior to RQ15 conference, or by the authors' choice, was to be published in other journals. During and after RQ15 conference, a number of RQ15 delegates submitted manuscripts for publication in the RQ15 special volume of Materials Research, an SCI international journal published in Brazil and with Professor Walter J. Botta being the chief editor. The submitted papers were reviewed according to the journal's standard and policy, and 28 papers were accepted after revision suggested by the reviewers. The topics of the accepted papers spread over a wide range, covering experimental studies and simulations of processing, microstructure and properties of rapidly solidified and other metastable materials. Here I would like to gratefully thank the editor, Professor Botta, the editorial assistant, Ms Luciana Zanotto, and the reviewers for their strong support and effort in reviewing the papers and editing the special volume.Hope readers will find the papers published in the RQ15 special volume scientifically significant and meaningful. Without any doubt, the research field of rapidly quenched and metastable materials will continue to be an exciting field with development of new materials with novel properties and new materials processing technologies. Looking forward to attending RQ16 to be held in 2017 in Austria.