This book is based on the Special Issue of the journal Molecules on “Smart and Functional Polymers”. The collected research and review articles focus on the synthesis and characterization of advanced functional polymers, polymers with specific structures and performances, current improvements in advanced polymer-based materials for various applications, and the opportunities and challenges in the future. The topics cover the emerging synthesis and characterization technology of smart polymers, core−shell structure polymers, stimuli-responsive polymers, anhydrous electrorheological materials fabricated from conducting polymers, reversible polymerization systems, and biomedical polymers for drug delivery and disease theranostics. In summary, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest synthesis approaches, representative structures and performances, and various applications of smart and functional polymers. It will serve as a useful reference for all researchers and readers interested in polymer sciences and technologies.

The field of molecular materials represents an exciting playground for the design, tailoring, and combination of chemical building blocks as carriers of physical properties and aims at the understanding and development of novel functional molecular devices. Within this extraordinarily widespread framework, the realization of materials with the desired functionalities can only be achieved through a rational design strategy based on a solid understanding of the chemical and physical features of each constituting building block. This book provides a general overview of molecular materials, discussing their key features in a simple and organic way by focusing more on basic concepts rather than on specialized descriptions, in order to supply the non-expert reader with the immediate fundamental tools and hints to understand and develop research in this field. With this view, it is a step-by-step guide toward the preparation of functional molecular materials, where the knowledge and understanding so far attained by the scientific community through the investigation of significant archetypical examples is deconstructed down to the fundamental basis and then presented in reverse, from the base to the top.

The field of molecular materials represents an exciting playground for the design, tailoring, and combination of chemical building blocks as carriers of physical properties and aims at the understanding and development of novel functional molecular devices. Within this extraordinarily widespread framework, the realization of materials with the desired functionalities can only be achieved through a rational design strategy based on a solid understanding of the chemical and physical features of each constituting building block. This book provides a general overview of molecular materials, discussing their key features in a simple and organic way by focusing more on basic concepts rather than on specialized descriptions, in order to supply the non-expert reader with the immediate fundamental tools and hints to understand and develop research in this field. With this view, it is a step-by-step guide toward the preparation of functional molecular materials, where the knowledge and understanding so far attained by the scientific community through the investigation of significant archetypical examples is deconstructed down to the fundamental basis and then presented in reverse, from the base to the top.

One of the major challenges of science in the last few years of the second millennium is learning how to design materials which can fulfill specific tasks. Ambitious as it may be, the possibilities of success are not ne~li~ble provided that all the different expertises merge to overcome the limits of eXIsting disciplines and forming new paradigms science. The NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Magnetic Molecular Materials" was organized with the above considerations in mind in order to determine which are the most appropriate synthetic strategies, experimental techniques of investigation, and theoretical models which are needed in order to develop new classes of magnetic materials which are based on molecules rather than on metallic or ionic lattices. Why molecules? The answer may be obvious: molecular chemistry in principle fine can tune the structures and the properties of complex aggregates, and nature already provides a large number of molecular aggregates which can perform the most disparate functions. The contributions collected in this book provide a rather complete view of the current research accomplishments of magnetic molecular materials. There are several different synthetic approaches which are followed ranging from purely organic to inorganic materials. Some encouraging successes have already been achieved, even if the critical temperatures below which magnetic order is observed still are in the range requiring liquid helium.

The articles in this book summarize the work presented at the final workshop of the COST (European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research) Action on Molecular Materials and Functional Polymers for Advanced Devices, which was held in June 2000 in Patras, Greece. The collection gives an excellent overview of the state-of-the-art in this field and the progress made by the coordinated research projects. The results range over the synthesis, physical properties, and applications of molecular materials (nanotubes, fullerenes, phthalocyanines), inorganic and inorganic-organic hybrid materials, and functional polymers (electronic conduction, photoluminiscence, optical storage, photovoltaic devices).

Covering the background of Fourier Transform Raman spectroscopy, this book goes on to give detailed documentation of the instrumental and spectroscopic development of the technique to date, discussing its advantages and disadvantages in relation to better known methods.