Foreword

This set of books offers an impressive collection and analysis of protocols for the chemical synthesis of nanomaterials — a class of materials that has attracted steadily growing interest over the past few decades owing to their fascinating properties and intriguing applications often superior to the bulk counterparts. The ability to produce such materials with good controls is central to the advances of many areas in modern science and technology, including catalysis, display, photonics, electronics, information storage, and medicine. Two different routes have been actively pursued for generating nanomaterials. The first route is often referred to as a “top-down” approach, which relies on the use of dedicated tools such as lithography to carve bulk materials into nanoscale structures. The other route is known as a “bottom-up” approach, which begins with building blocks such as atomic or molecular species to assemble the minto nanoscale structures. This approach heavily relies on the use of chemical and/or biological principles. As the tools required for the conventional “top-down” approach become more sophisticated and expensive (and therefore less accessible to the scientific community), there is an ever-growing interest in developing “bottom-up "methods and unconventional “top-down” techniques for fabricating nanomaterials.