This is the first volume in a two-volume textbook, Functional Soft Matter, written for students and early-career researchers to learn the scientific foundations of functional soft matter. It is followed by the second volume, Functional Soft Matter II: Analytical Methods and Topics.

This book introduces the chemical and physical foundations of functional soft matter. It covers thermal, mechanical, photochemical, photophysical, electronic, and magnetic properties. Materials discussed include liquid crystals, aromatic compounds, conjugated polymers, ionic liquids, and biomaterials. Undergraduate students and young researchers will gain a solid grounding in these materials and properties, together with current imaging applications and those anticipated in the future.

Masahiro Funahashi studied organic synthetic chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Koichi Narasaka in the University of Tokyo. He was appointed to a research associate of the group of Prof. Jun-ichi Hanna in Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1994 and obtained a Ph.D. degree in 1999. He moved to the Nanotechnology Research Institute of AIST in 2005 and worked as a researcher in the group of Prof. Nobuyuki Tamaoki. He was appointed to an associate professor of the group of Prof. Takashi Kato in the University of Tokyo in 2007. He promoted to a full professor of Kagawa University in 2010. From 2017, he was invited to be a guest researcher of the Health and Medical Research Institute, AIST. Since 2024, he has been a full professor of  Kobe University. He received SPSJ Hitachi Kasei Award 2009 from the Society of Polymer Science, Japan. He also received the JLCS Best Paper Award four times from the Japanese Liquid Crystal Society.