Very fascinating new developments are taking place in the field of condensed matter physics and functional materials. Numerous new materials have recently been discovered which cannot be described with the traditional textbook classifications such as phonons, electrons, bandstructures etc. The complexity is largely due to the strong nteractions between the relevant particles and in which subtle differences in the interactions may lead to a material being magnetic, insulating, or superconducting. Some of these effects have been studied in model-systems such as Josephson-arrays, in many real and usable materials the search for the relevant concepts is actively being pursued theoretically and experimentally. In addition there are many materials with new functionalities such as the organic semiconductors with unique optical and electrical properties and of course the one-atom thick graphene layers. In both cases a strong interaction with chemists is crucial as well as the control of the thin film technology known from the semiconductor world.