Frontiers in Nanointerfaces Research

Surface and interface have always been the core elements in nanoscience research. The ultrahigh surface-to-volume ratio of nanomaterials is well known even in textbooks. In recent years, the nanoscience and technology community has witnessed the rapid advancement of nanointerfaces research, in particular those enabling a wide range of exciting new applications and advanced technologies. Considering the significant impact, we have organized this Special Issue in Small, with a theme on “Frontiers in Nanointerfaces”, to highlight and summarize some of the latest progress in this field. This Special Issue includes 7 Communication, 5 Full Paper, and 6 Review articles, which are contributed by world-leading experts from 17 institutions around the globe. The topics cover biomedicine, catalysis, optics, energy harvesting and storage, nanofabrication, and flexi­ble electronics. Being guest editors, we hope that this Special Issue will be highly interesting and readable to a large number of communities, and will bring more researchers into this field in the near future. We also hope that this issue will raise the common interest of researchers from different fields to work together for interdisciplinary projects. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to Dr. Jose Oliveira and Dr. Jie Cai, and the Small editorial team for their great efforts to publish this Special Issue. Zijian Zheng received his B. Eng. in Chemical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2003 and PhD in Chemistry and Nanoscience at University of Cambridge in 2007, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University in 2008–2009. Prof. Zheng joined The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as Assistant Professor in 2009 and is currently a Full Professor at the same university. His research interests include surface science, self-assembly, nanolithography, polymer science, and bendable/stretchable/wearable/graphene materials and electronic devices. He is known for his contribution in interface nano­science and technology for nanofabrication and wearable electronics. Hua Zhang obtained his B.S. (1992) and M.S. (1995) at Nanjing University, and completed his Ph.D. with Prof. Zhongfan Liu at Peking University (1998). As a Postdoctoral Fellow, he joined Prof. De Schryver's group at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (1999), and then Prof. Mirkin's group at Northwestern University (2001). After working at NanoInk Inc. (USA) and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (Singapore), he joined Nanyang Technological University (2006). His research interests include: synthesis of ultrathin 2D nanomaterials and their hybrid composites for applications in a various areas, including nano- and biosensors, clean energy, (opto-)electronic devices, catalysis, and more. Jwa-Min Nam received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. At Seoul National University, he is: Full Professor in Chemistry; Director of the Center for Innovative Nanobiomedical Technology. He serves as: Vice-Chair of the Young Korean Academy of Science and Technology (Y-KAST), and the Division of International Cooperation, Korean Chemical Society; elected member of the Global Young Academy and Y-KAST; executive advisory board member of Small Methods; and editorial board member for ChemNanoMat. His interests include chemical nanoplasmonics; plasmonic nanoprobes for biosensors, bioimaging, therapeutics; nanoparticle-tethered lipid bilayers, bio-computing and cell-nanostructure interfaces. Nathan C. Gianneschi received his B.Sc(Hons) at the University of Adelaide (1999), and completed his Ph.D at Northwestern University (2005). Following a Dow Chemical postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, he began his career (2008) at the University of California, San Diego where, until June 2017, he was Teddy Traylor Scholar and Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry, NanoEngineering and Materials Science & Engineering. He started at Northwestern University (2017) where he is currently a Jacob & Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science & Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering, where he takes an interdisciplinary approach to nano­materials research.