Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Materials

In principle, if one can control processing to achieve the highest homogeneity, then it should be possible to obtain exceptional control of a material's reproducibility, predictability and tailorability. Over the past 30 years, tremendous investments of time, energy and resources have been made to learn to control materials properties at the atomic scale using chemical processing methods. Successes in chemical processing are now being extended to the next length scales (1-1000nm) to produce nanocomposite or organic/inorganic hybrid materials. Recent exceptional advances in hybrid materials synthesis, characterization and processing suggest that this area will occupy scientists and engineers for at least as long a period, and prompted this collection of inter-disciplinary research papers. Topics include: molecular and nanocomposite hybrid synthesis, processing and characterization; porous materials produced by hybrid processing methods; hybrid materials that exhibit optical, electronic, catalytic or physical properties; and new methods of characterizing these materials.