Structural Fluctuations at Nanoscale in Complex Functional Materials

Outstanding structure-function relationships of modern complex functional materials, are often due their dynamic heterogeneous structure and composition. These materials are characterized by weak competing interactions between structural units, giving rise to ultrastructure presenting different supramolecular configurations at nanoscale. The fluctuations between these different configurations play a central role in the understanding of both the basic properties of materials and their functionality. The visualization and the understanding of the dynamic fluctuations at nanoscale require experimental techniques suitable to provide appropriate spatial and temporal resolution, jointly to advanced modelling and statistical tools for data analysis. Examples of complex functional materials can be found in different fields ranging from material science to biology. Here we review connections between new geometries arising from structural fluctuations at nanoscale with the emerging macroscopic properties in some simple model systems in different fields.