P REFACE TO V OLUME 3: P OLYMERS AND O THER M ATERIALS This volume covers a variety of topics in the rapidly developing field of chemical sensors. The purpose of this volume is to explain and illustrate the use of multifunctional materials such as polymers, calixarenes, ion conductors, biological systems, and novel semiconductors in chemical sensors. These materials differ fundamentally from standard metal oxides and metals, so their application provides opportunities to de- sign sensors based on entirely different mechanisms of sensing. As a result, new trends in the elaboration of sensors with different functional attributes and for building instruments with previously unavailable capabilities demanded by new applications have opened up. Therefore, this book is intended to be a pri- mary source for both fundamental and practical information related to these multifunctional materials, which will be necessary for future development. This volume comprises seven chapters written by active researchers who are well-known experts in their fields and who have made significant contributions to the field over the past several years. Thus, this book presents the most recent advances in all the key aspects of development and application of polymers and other multifunctional materials for chemical and biological analysis. The chapters in this book have been written to give the reader the "big picture," from the design phase to implementation of chemical sensors of various types. Every chapter addresses the particulars of multifunctional materials synthesis and characterization. In every chapter you will also find descriptions of a very wide range of devices that may be designed using such multifunctional materials.. These chapters thus highlight the materials, the physics, the devices, and even key fabrication issues. We hope that the information pre- sented in this volume will help the reader understand the details of sensing material design for specific applications and establish quantitative structure­function relationships. The intended audience is scientists, researchers, and engineers in industries and research laborato- ries. With its many references to the vast resources of recently published literature on the subject, this book serves as a significant and insightful source of valuable information pertaining to the ongoing scientific debates, the current state of understanding, and future directions. Students will also find the book to be very useful in their research and understanding of chemical sensors and multifunctional materials. The structure of this book offers a basis for a high-throughput instrumentation course at the xiii