What can chemists do for nanostructured materials?

Nanostructured materials have now been investigated for more than a decade using a rather wide range of experimental methods. The structures and properties of these new materials, which are artificially synthesized from nanometer-sized ``building blocks``, such as clusters, grains or layers, have been elucidated in a number of important areas and the relationships among these areas are beginning to be understood. Various investigations of their mechanical, chemical, electrical, magnetic, and optical behavior have demonstrated the possibilities to engineer the properties of nanostructured materials through control of the sizes of their constituent clusters, grains or layers and the manner in which these constituents are assembled. There are, however, tremendous opportunities remaining for creative new tailored chemical synthesis and processing methods and for developing an understanding of the important role of surface and interface chemistry in the assembly and resulting properties of these materials. Some aspects of the present understanding of nanostructured materials and their properties are briefly presented here, along with some thoughts regarding a few critical future research needs in various areas of chemistry that would add greatly to the field of nanostructured materials