Themed issue on “Advanced Hybrid Materials”

The quest for new materials for tailor-made applications and new devices or for understanding the complexity of living matter has lead to tremendous research activity exploring the possibilities offered by various kinds of functional building blocks to design matter. In this respect, hybrid materials, i.e. nanosized units assembled to yield organic/inorganic (O/I) or bio/inorganic functional hetero-structures, are arguably one of the hot (if not hype) topics these days. While they have been around as natural materials for thousands of years, chemists are only now learning how to make them, modify and adapt their functionalities, and quantify and understand their uniquely diverse, yet highly specialized, properties. In consequence, the recent past has also seen an increasing number of conferences on the topic. The Hybrid Materials conferences in France are just one example of a highly publicized and well-attended meeting solely devoted to hybrid materials.

Fig. 1 Image taken from DOI 10.1039/c000334d.

Probably one reason why hybrid materials have attracted so much attention (besides their obvious usefulness and market potential) is the fact that almost every scientist will find a subject related to hybrid materials that is interesting to her or him. Because the field is so broad, yet challenging and promising, the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS) has decided to host its first ever symposium on hybrid materials, Symposium T, at the 2010 E-MRS Spring Meeting in Strasbourg in June this year. The organizers, Kamil Lang (Prague, Czech Republic), Fabrice Leroux (Aubière, France), Philippe Dubois (Mons, Belgium), Pierre Rabu (Strasbourg, France), and Andreas Taubert (Potsdam, Germany) did in the planning phase hope for 90+ abstracts, as this was deemed the minimum number to generate a stable and diverse program. The committee relatively rapidly received over 190 (!) abstracts for this first event, which illustrates the growing need for and interest in special symposia on hybrid materials. The large number of abstracts required quite some selection, but the organizers believe that the final program was of very high quality, with excellent talks, interesting posters and a lot of crosstalk between members of different sub-fields.

Fig. 2 Image taken from DOI 10.1039/c0jm01248c.

The current issue of Journal of Materials Chemistry, which is now in your hands, is one outcome of the highly successful Symposium T: Advanced Hybrid Materials – Stakes and Concepts held at the E-MRS Spring Meeting 2010. It will give you an, although incomplete, overview over the research that is being conducted all over the world on various aspects of hybrid materials chemistry. Topics encompass the chemical synthesis of hybrid materials to making responsive hybrid materials, the effects of different components and their possible synergy, optical, magnetic, and catalytic properties of hybrid materials, hybrid materials for use in medical fields and the generation of hybrid materials containing living cells. It is of broad interest for solid-state chemists, physicists or materials engineers, and in the area of supramolecular and organo-metallic chemistries, and biochemistry as well.

Fig. 3 Image taken from DOI 10.1039/b926438h.

The themed issue gives an excellent overview over many different activities related to current hybrid materials research. At the origin of the field, sol–gel chemistry and silica based hybrids continue to progress toward complex hierarchical organisation and control of chemical bonding. New polymer nanocomposites are presented in this issue, involving polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) or transition metal nanoparticles leading to modifications of chemical properties of polymers or to new mechanical or electronic properties. Ionogels, that is, the combination of ionic liquids with an organic or inorganic matrix is an emerging topic, which seems particularly promising in the field of electrolyte or fuel cell membranes, catalysis, optics, or magnetism. Crystalline magnetic, optical, and multifunctional materials were also obtained by (self)-assembling molecular or supramolecular organic and inorganic building units, especially in layered systems. The properties of each sub-network and their synergy are then tuned by the topology and the chemical bonding between constituents.

Fig. 4 Image taken from DOI 10.1039/c0jm01552k.

Beyond experiments, the contributions of theory using DFT or quantum mechanical molecular dynamics are most important for accurate description, at the atomic scale, of the structures, bonding schemes and properties of such complex systems.

Fig. 5 Image taken from DOI 10.1039/b925178b.

Energy and environmental science are also areas of interest for hybrid materials chemistry: the functionalization of semiconducting oxides enhancing the efficiency of solar cells, the incorporation of inorganic nano-clusters in a polymer or silica matrix with improved catalytic activity, the fabrication of bactericidal hybrid films or chemical sensors are just a few examples discussed in the themed issue. New approaches for drug delivery systems derived from insertion compounds were also presented at the Symposium T and finally, inspiration comes from the living matter either for building artificial biomimetic structures or using living cells to produce tailored functional products.

Fig. 6 Image taken from DOI 10.1039/b913269d.

As the guest editors of this themed issue, we would like to invite you to browse the journal and study those articles in detail that are interesting to you. You may also want to have a much closer look at those articles that are somewhat out of your field. As usual, they could be the most interesting of all, because they may open your eyes to a new aspect of materials chemistry that you have not considered so far. Finally, we would also encourage you to contact the research groups, whose articles are interesting to you; there may be opportunities for new collaborations and developments, which should not be wasted. In short, we hope you enjoy reading this themed issue as much as we enjoyed putting everything together and seeing the issue grow with every new article accepted.

Pierre Rabu, Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg, CNRS-Université de Strasbourg, France.

Andreas Taubert, University of Potsdam, Germany.

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