The International Conference on Solid State Physics (ICSSP’13) was held December 01–06, 2013 at the University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. ICSSP’13 was a huge success drawing around 250 participants from 11 countries. The conference was divided into 29 oral sessions and 3 poster sessions. A total of 227 papers have been accepted for the conference out of which 152 were oral. Sol–Gel Science and Technology is an important part of the Nanotechnology researches being presently performed. Some of the conference papers in this field were carefully selected and are being published in this Special Issue of Journal of Sol–Gel Science and Technology after a thorough review.

The overall supervision and cooperation of Prof. Dr. Michel Aegerter, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Sol–Gel Science & Technology, for the publication of these papers is highly acknowledged. I also thank Ms. Nirmala Kumar of the editorial office for her help.

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Saira Riaz is Associate Professor of Solid State Physics at the University of the Punjab. She has published more than 75 papers in Peer Reviewed Journals and has more than 150 conference presentations. Saira is a member of the Pakistan Institute of Physics and a member of TWOWS.