The material innovations on surfaces, combined with understanding and manipulation of physics and chemistry of functional surfaces and coatings, have exploded in the past decade at an incredibly rapid pace.Superhydrophobicity, superhydrophlicity, self-cleaning, self-healing, anti-fouling, anti-bacterial, etc., have become important fundamental topics of surface science research community driven by curiosity of physics, chemistry, and biology of interaction phenomenon at surfaces and their enormous potential in practical applications. Materials having controlled-functionality surfaces and coatings are important to the manufacturing of new products for environmental control, liquid manipulation, nanotechnological advances, biomedical engineering, pharmacy, biotechnology, and many others, and are part of the most promising technological innovations of the twenty-first century.

表面上的材料創新，加上對功能表面和涂層的物理和化學的理解和操作，在過去的十年里以驚人的速度爆炸了。超疏水性、超親水性、自清潔性、自愈性、防污性、抗菌性等已成為表面科學研究界的重要基礎課題，受到表面相互作用現象的物理、化學、生物學等方面的關注，在實際應用中具有巨大的潛力。具有受控功能表面和涂層的材料對于制造用于環境控制、液體操作、納米技術進步、生物醫學工程、制藥、生物技術等的新產品很重要，并且是二十一世紀最有前途的技術創新的一部分。