ORIENTED INORGANIC FILMS

Since 1996 there have been over 500 literature citations for oriented inorganic films, although a majority of these papers are concerned wit h vapor phase processing routes such as chemical vapor deposition. Wit hin the context of colloid and interface science there has been contin ued, incremental progress in so-called 'sol-gel' or 'solution chemical ' processing of epitaxial ferroelectric and piezoelectric films for a variety of electronic and optical applications. A promising new approa ch that obviates the requirement of a single crystal substrate involve s heterogenous nucleation and growth on preorganized organic and organ ically-modified surfaces. Such biomimetic schemes have also been used to form highly oriented porous films for use in separations, sensors, and catalysis. New hydrothermal routes have been devised to prepare or iented zeolite films as well as ferroelectric films. It is anticipated that the combination of self-assembly processes with innovative patte rning strategies should lead to future advances in this field.