Functional Hybrid Materials

The book you have in your hands is the result of a thrilling struggle. A struggle to depict, in a bit more than a handful of chapters, the blooming and multifaceted world of hybrid materials with functional properties and applications. Hybrid organic-inorganic materials constitute indeed a remarkable and growing category within the world of Materials Science. A realm where engineering the combination of dissimilar components at the nanometric and molecular level leads both to new challenges and opportunities for the development of novel and improved materials. This is a field where the boundaries between molecular and extended materials blur out, a field where ceramics and polymers meet at the chemical dimension to yield new materials that go well beyond conventional composites, a domain in which nanocomposites push forward the frontier of discovery. In this exciting field, remarkable structural materials, halfway between glass and polymers have been developed. Yet, the hybrid approach also offers great opportunities for the development of functional materials, a fertile ground to harness the chemical, physical, electrochemical or biological activity of a myriad organic and inorganic components and put them to work in the materials of tomorrow.