This is a Special Issue of the Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics that contains a number of papers that were reported in the Seventh International Conference on Optical, Optoelectronic and Photonic Materials and Applications (ICOOPMA16), held in Montreal, 13–17 June 2016. It would be wrong to call this simply a publication of the proceedings of the conference, inasmuch as all submitted papers were subjected to the journal’s high standard of review; at least two to three independent referees carefully read and critically commented on the scientific and technical content of each paper. In many cases, the papers went through a second round of review. Consequently, the final published manuscripts constitute a rigorously reviewed collection of papers, which is a slice of the state-of-the-art in optoelectronic materials as reported in ICOOPMA16.

We would like to briefly mention the history of ICOOPMA. This conference was originally sponsored by Springer, and was held for the first time in Darwin, Australia, in July 2006. The ICOOPMA series arose from a need for such a conference for those researchers who sought a truly international conference that covered a wide range of materials and applications in optics, optoelectronics and photonics. One of the goals is to provide discussions between researchers working on different classes of materials that have similar applications; or have been characterized by similar techniques. The conference has a large number of invited speakers to allow such cross-fertilization between researchers working on different classes of materials. The conference now attracts about 250–300 delegates worldwide, has three parallel oral sessions, and two poster sessions. Over the last seven ICOOPMA conferences, numerous well-recognized researchers have not only delivered presentations but also stayed through the conference and actively participated to enhance the quality of the scientific program. The selected papers in this special issue clearly reflect a high quality of research.

We would like to thank the Chief Deputy Editor (Professor Safa Kasap) of this journal for his continued support through the editing of the special issue papers. He ensured that we kept high standards in the special issue, and he was always ready to help.