Introduction.- Acetylene.- Cuprene.- Polyenes and Polyvinylenes.- Polyacetylene.- Doped Polyacetylene.- 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
About the Author:

Seth C. Rasmussen is a professor of chemistry at North Dakota State Universi-ty (NDSU) in Fargo (seth.rasmussen@ndsu.edu). A native of the Seattle area, he received his B.S in chemistry from Washington State University in 1990, before continuing his graduate studies at Clemson University under the guidance of Prof. John D. Petersen. After completing his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry in 1994, he moved to the University of Oregon to study conjugated organic polymers as a postdoctoral associate under Prof. James E. Hutchison., He then accepted a teaching position at the University of Oregon in 1997, before moving to join the faculty at NDSU in 1999. Attaining the rank of full professor in 2012, Prof. Rasmussen also spent the spring of 2018 as a Fulbright Senior Scholar and visiting professor at the Centre for Organic Electronics of the University of Newcastle, Australia.

Active in the fields of both materials chemistry and the history of chemistry, his research interests include the design and synthesis of conjugated materials, photovoltaics (solar cells), NIR photodectectors, organic light emitting diodes, the history of materials, chemical technology in antiquity, and the application of history to chemical education. As both author and editor, Prof. Rasmussen has contributed to books in both materials and history and has published more than 95 research papers and book chapters. He is a member of various international professional societies including the American Chemical Society, Materials Re-search Society, Alpha Chi Sigma, American Nano Society, Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, History of Science Society, and the International His-tory, Philosophy & Science Teaching Group.

Prof. Rasmussen served as the Program Chair for the History of Chemistry (HIST) division of the American Chemical Society from 2008 to 2017 and continues to serve the division as a member-at-large of its executive committee. In addition, he currently serves as the series editor for the Springer Briefs in Molecular Science: History of Chemistry book series, as an editor of the journal Cogent Chemistry, and on the advisory board for the journal Substantia: An International Journal of the History of Chemistry.