This issue Edited by Masahiro Irie from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

Covers the latest progress and achievements in non biological new and traditional organic photochromic molecules (with an exception of bacteriorhodopsin) and their applications to optical switches and memories. Topics includes photo optical switching devices made by Organic-Inorganic materials, optical neural networks using photochromic memory media, photochromic mechanisms, non linear optical properties of photochromic molecules and more...

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The authors review an emerging materials chemistry field which allows using a "bottom up" approach to functionalize and tailor at the molecular level Inorganic-Organic interfaces. This new class of mesoporous Inorganic-Organic hybrids is formed by condensation polymerization of  (RO)₃ - X - Si(OR)₃ precursors in presence of a liquid crystalline template. The resulting material is a monodisperse hexagonally ordered channels with tunable size from 2 to 100 nm. By this way an in situ incorporation of the organic group X is formed which bridge bond the walls of the periodic structure. 
Direct incorporation of organic groups X such as methylene, ethane, ethylene, benzene, thiophene, acetylene, ferrocene has been already demonstrated and there is no reasons why other chemical groups with specific functions cannot be covalently integrated into these structures. 
This open the window for high functionalized materials. The X groups which can be considered as spacers between the wall structure, could be selected to either soften or harden the structure.

Generally, Quantum dots suffer stability which most of the time is re mediated by using a in situ caping process  or by using a post synthetic grafting technique. Even so the incorporation of such QD into a solid matrix is not straightforward.
The authors of this paper present a chemical route to produce stable QD polymer composites with Photoluminescent quantum yields approaching the one found in dilute hexane solution of the same QD. The composites are fabricated by chemical stabilization of synthesized II-VI semiconductors QD ( (CdSe)ZnS and (CdS)ZnS) into polylauryl methacrylate matrice in presence of tri-n-octylphosphine.
PL yield between 22 to 40 % was measured in respect to the QD size. Under a UV excitation (which can be provided by a commercial GaN Led) nearly pure colors in the visible range from 450 to 650 nm have been demonstrated. 

Photonic crystal structures have a bright future. They have all the ingredients to be in future telecommunications and information processing systems what was the semiconductors in the revolution of the electronic industry. This  is an excellent introduction to this exciting subject for all of us who do not necessarily want to go in a depth analysis to understand how these device works.