A specific HWCVD variant known as initiated chemical vapor deposition or iCVD has been successfully implemented in the encapsulation of fine particles with polymers. Without using a liquid medium, iCVD enabled the coating of fine particles down to the nanoscale without particle agglomeration. More significantly, iCVD was demonstrated as a versatile surface design methodology in achieving the requisite surface properties by either directly depositing the polymer with the required functionality or through subsequent binding of the functionality on a pre-deposited reactive polymer. The ability to adapt iCVD to an increasingly wider array of substrates and polymer chemistries was aided by understanding iCVD reaction kinetics through mechanistic modeling. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.