UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA'S ALAN G. MAC DIARMID
AND FORMER PENN PHYSICIST ALAN J. HEEGER ARE AMONG THREE WINNERS
OF THE 2000 NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY
PHILADELPHIA - Alan G. MacDiarmid, Ph.D., Blanchard Professor
of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, is one of
three recipients of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Sharing
the honor are former Penn faculty member Alan J. Heeger, Ph.D.,
now at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and
Hideki Shirakawa, Ph.D., of the University of Tsukuba in Japan.
The work underlying the award - which showed that plastics
can be made to conduct electricity - was carried out at Penn
in the late 1970s, when Drs. MacDiarmid and Heeger were both
on the Penn faculty.
The holder of some 30 U.S. patents, Dr. MacDiarmid, 73, has
been at Penn since 1955. Dr. Heeger, 64, was a physicist on
the Penn faculty from 1962 to 1983 and directed the University's
Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter from 1974
to 1981.
"This is indeed a moment for great joy and celebration,
as we join the Nobel committee in acknowledging the achievements
of an outstanding researcher and faculty member," said
Penn President Judith Rodin. "This pathbreaking research
into 'conducting polymers,' that is, plastics that can conduct
electricity, introduced a new and completely unexpected phenomenon
to the fields of chemistry and physics and has unleashed a
flood of interdisciplinary studies which have continued unabated
to this day.
"Alan MacDiarmid is a truly extraordinary scientist
and we offer him and his colleagues our deepest and most heartfelt
congratulations."
The Nobel Prize honors the trio's 1977 discovery that plastics,
or polymers, can be made to conduct electricity much like
metals. This finding turned on its head the conventional wisdom
that polymers could not conduct electricity, and unleashed
a flurry of new research among physicists, chemists, and materials
scientists worldwide.
Polymers are molecular chains with a regularly repeating
structure. For a polymer to conduct electric current, it must
consist alternately of single and double bonds between the
carbon atoms. It must also be "doped," which means
that electrons are removed (through oxidation) or introduced
(through reduction). These "holes," or extra electrons,
can move along the molecule, making it electrically conductive.
Drs. MacDiarmid, Heeger, and Shirakawa were responsible for
the 1977 synthesis and the electrical and chemical doping
of polyacetylene, the prototypical conducting polymer, and
the rediscovery of polyaniline, now the foremost industrial
conducting polymer. They have subsequently developed conductive
polymers into a research field of great importance for chemists
as well as physicists. The area has also yielded important
practical applications. Conductive plastics are used in, or
are being developed industrially for anti-static substances
for photographic film, shields for computer screen against
electromagnetic radiation and for "smart" windows
that can exclude sunlight. In addition, semi-conductive polymers
have recently been developed in light-emitting diodes (LEDs),
solar cells and as displays in mobile telephones and mini-format
television screens.
Research on conductive polymers has also fueled the rapid
development of molecular electronics. In the future scientists
may be able to produce transistors and other electronic components
consisting of individual molecules, dramatically increasing
the speed and reducing the size of computers: a computer corresponding
to the laptops we now carry around would suddenly fit inside
a wristwatch.
Born in Masterton, New Zealand, Dr. MacDiarmid is author
or co-author of more than 600 research papers. He holds a
B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the University of New Zealand and doctoral
degrees from the University of Wisconsin and the University
of Cambridge in England.
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