The term "Smart Material Design" implies "smart materials" as well as "smart design". It covers a wide range of topics such as quantum materials, nanomaterials, photonic and metamaterials as well as quantum simulation and quantum information technology. The research and transfer of these topics into corresponding applications have the potential to change the information and storage technology of the future in a similar way as semiconductor physics has done in past decades. However, the underlying phenomena can explicitly exploit the quantum nature of matter, which can lead to new or improved applications/concepts.
Such quantum materials [1] are e.g. solids whose properties are dominated by non-classical phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as entanglement, quantization, topology, fractionalization, coherence and degeneration. In addition to their importance for physical foundations, these properties will also lead to technological applications. The modelling of quantum materials is decisively influenced by the new topic quantum simulation [2-5]. Smart material design also enables completely new functionalities in the field of sensor technology, lighting technology and new materials for energy technologies, for which the development of suitable manufacturing processes and (nano-) metrological characterization techniques are indispensable.