ABSTRACT
Organic-inorganic (O-I) hybrid materials are systems in which the organic and inorganic components are intimately assembled at nano-sized scale length. The properties of these materials strictly depend upon the interactions established between the phases, which can be tailored to have new and multifunctional materials exhibiting the properties of both the inorganic material (e.g., rigidity, thermal stability) and the organic phase (e.g., flexibility, ductility, and processability). The intimate bonding between organic and inorganic phase is evident in many natural materials such as bone and nacre. Over the last few years, the understanding of the formation of these natural materials has significantly increased the interest in research on O-I hybrid materials. Knowledge of self-assembly and biomineralization mechanisms is a major challenge of modern materials science, which is increasingly adopting a multidisciplinary approach aimed to produce new materials for applications in many fields, such as optics, packaging, environment, and energy and medicine. The growing interest in these areas has broadened the meaning of the term hybrid to include all cases where organic or inorganic nano-sized domains are intimately assembled into homogeneous morphology. However, the term hybrid material is more widely used to denote O-I nanocomposites produced by the solgel method.
