**5. Conclusions**

For over a decade, indium chalcogenide nanomaterials continue to make significant contributions in the development of next-generation functional materials and devices, attributed to their unique properties which can be tuned easily using existing methods. As a result of their multiple crystallographic phases, in addition to the manipulation of the physical features such as morphology, indium chalcogenide nanomaterials remain of interest due to diversified opportunities which still need to be explored.

With the aid of computational modeling and related tools, it has become easier to identify application-specific objectives which guide the thought process when designing reaction protocols for nanomaterial fabrication. The current researchdriven focus is on providing easy and efficient solutions to challenges associated with purity, quality and yield which affect the performance of the nanomaterial in desired applications. Hence, the recent literature reports provided in this book chapter have rather revisited classical methods of synthesis which are reputably known for producing high quality precursors, even though having received a lot of criticism over the years due to harsh and/or sensitive reaction protocols best executed by skilled personnel. Therefore, there is now and urgent need for the alternative routes such as the use of low-temperature decomposing single-source molecular precursors, which have been developed over the years, to be improved and incorporated in the fabrication of functional nanodevices.

In many literature reports, there continues to be an exacerbated use of 'non-toxic alternatives' and related terms whenever nanomaterials which do not contain heavy metals are presented. Novel and/or improved properties resulting from the physical changes of the material is a good indication that the nanomaterial could exhibit features and behavior different to the bulk counterpart, toxicity could be an example. Thus, an increasing trend on the interest of toxicity studies for nanomaterials is envisaged in the coming years.
