Smart Surfaces: Coatings that Think

Surfaces are no longer passive boundaries—they are becoming active participants. Smart Surfaces: Coatings that Think explores how engineered coatings sense, respond, and adapt to their environment, changing how products perform and endure.
This book takes an interface-first perspective. It examines how thin layers can regulate heat, repel contaminants, heal scratches, change wettability, or signal stress—often without moving parts or external power. The focus is on behavior at the boundary, where materials meet air, water, skin, light, and friction.
Rather than treating coatings as finishes, the book reframes them as systems: chemistry, microstructure, and stimuli working together. Readers learn why responsiveness beats thickness, how durability is engineered at the nanoscale, and where smart surfaces quietly replace complex mechanisms.
You will explore:
• How surfaces sense and respond to their environment
• Why coatings can add intelligence without bulk
• How micro- and nano-structure drive surface behavior
• Where smart surfaces reduce maintenance and energy use
• Why interfaces often matter more than cores
This book is for materials scientists, product engineers, and designers who think from the outside in. If performance begins at the surface, this book shows how coatings start to think.