Introduction

Materials have always been instrumental for technological progress and social change in the development of mankind and civilization.1For example, the industrial age and the industrial revolution were possible because of progress in steel fabrication, which allowed for the development of thermomechanical energy converters and reactor vessels for a chemical industry, in the course of which global population experienced unprecedented exponential growth.2The older generations among the readers of this Focus Issue have experienced how a new industrial revolution featuring semiconductor technology and computer processors led mankind to the information age. Specifically, this was based partially on the desire and ability of researchers to be able to add atoms precisely together with solid matter for materials with particular functions. This method was typically applied to single crystal surfaces and was called epitaxy.3,4