• First of its kind, summarizing important aspects of the fundamental scientific challenges and potential applications of biofunctional surface architectures


• Attracts the interest of a broad multidisciplinary readership coming from the natural sciences, including biology, from the medical disciplines, and from engineering


• Complements many community activities, e.g., activities of the AVS, the organization of numerous conferences covering this topic, e.g., a Gordon Conference on Biointerfaces.

The design and synthesis of molecularly or supra-molecularly defined interfacial architectures have seen in recent years a remarkable growth of interest and scientific research activities for various reasons. On the one hand, it is generally believed that the construction of an interactive interface between the living world of cells, tissue, or whole organisms and the (inorganic or organic) materials world of technical devices such as implants or medical parts requires the proper construction and structural (and functional) control of this organism–machine interface. It is still the very beginning of generating a better understanding of what is needed to make an organism tolerate implants, to guarantee the bidirectional communication between microelectronic devices and living tissue or to simply construct an interactive biocompatibility of surfaces in general.

This book describes the design, synthesis, assembly and characterization, and the bio-(medical) application of interfacial layers on solid substrates with molecularly or supra-molecularly controlled architectures. Experts in the field describe their contributions that have been developed in recent years.

About the Editor:
Wolfgang Knoll received a PhD degree in biophysics at the University of Konstanz in 1976. In 1977, he joined the group of Prof. E. Sackmann at the University of Ulm, Germany, working on model membrane systems and their phase behavior by neutron scattering, spectroscopic and thermodynamic measurements. After a postdoctoral stay at the IBM Research Laboratory in San Jose, California (1980–1981) and a stay as a visiting scientist at the Institute Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, he joined the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich. From 1991 to 1999, he was Head of Laboratory for Exotic Nanomaterials hosted by the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Wako, Japan. In 1992, he was appointed consulting professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, California. In 1998, he was appointed professor of chemistry (by courtesy) at the University of Florida in Gainesville and in 1999 adjunct professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea. His current research interests include aspects of the structure/order–property/function relationships of polymeric/organic systems, in particular, in thin films and at functionalized surfaces. 

Scientists, advanced students, professionals in academic and industrial institutions.