The homogeneous combination of inorganic and organic moieties in a single-phase material
provides unique possibilities to tailor the mechanical, electrical, and optical properties with
respect to numerous applications. The synthetic pathway follows the well-known sol−gel
procedure. Nevertheless, the establishment of defined hybrid products necessitates a basic
understanding of the underlying chemistry as well as of the parameters influencing the
processing techniques. Modern spectroscopy provides versatile tools, e.g., multinuclear NMR
experiments and Raman scattering to investigate the sol−gel processing of organo(alkoxy)silanes in their co-condensation reactions with main group or transition metal alkoxides as
well as in their copolymerization reactions with each other or with organic molecules. This
almost infinite modular design concept has led to the industrial application of coatings for
transparent plastics, glasses, and metals to prevent these substrates from mechanical
abrasion, permeation, or corrosion or to achieve decorative functions. Further passive optical
properties can be realized by generating submicrometer surface patterns. By the integration
of organic or inorganic dopants, like dyes or nanoparticles, highly sophisticated multifunctional hybrid polymers or nanocomposites are accessible and have become important to
achieve active optical functions, e.g. switching, light harvesting, or storage media. Recently
developed porous and dense bulk hybrid polymers have shown that the range of possible
applications is not limited to surface refinement by coatings. This contribution reviews the
present status as well as the perspectives of these types of advanced materials.