Molecular design of hybrid organic-inorganic materials

Hybrid organic-inorganic materials offer a wide range of interesting applications especially in optics. Chemistry plays a major role in the elaboration and comprehension of such materials. Sol-gel process provide a method to blend, down to the molecular scale, organic and inorganic components. Examples of hybrid organic-inorganic materials for optics and optical characterizations of hybrid materials are given here. The interest for sol-gel materials is not only related to their physical and chemical properties, but also to the wide possibilities of materials processing offer by the colloidal state. The viscosity of sols easily allows to prepare films by dip-coating, spraying or spin coating [I]. The chemistry involved in sol-gel process is based on inorganic polymerization [2,3]. In the organic route, precursors are