Conducting and semiconducting (conjugated) polymers have a unique set of properties, combining the electronic properties of metals and semiconductors with the processing advantages and mechanical properties of polymers. Now, thirty-five years after their discovery, metallic conducting polymers have been demonstrated in the laboratory to have electrical conductivities approaching that of copper, and mechanical strengths exceeding that of steel, a remarkable achievement.

A wide variety of electrical and optical devices have been demonstrated using semiconducting polymers. Light-emitting devices have been made which are as bright as fluorescent lamps at applied voltages of only a few volts; photovoltaic solar energy conversion using conjugated polymer composites is in industrial production; conjugated polymer transistors, circuits and chips have been demonstrated. Indeed, semiconducting and metallic polymers can be thought of as electronic 'inks'. The advances in printing technology (ink-jet printing, off-set printing, etc) combined with the science and technology of conducting polymers will revolutionize the way in which electronic devices are manufactured. In addition, semiconducting and metallic polymers can be used in applications which require special mechanical properties such as flexibility.

The field of semiconducting and conducting polymers has become one of the most attractive areas of interdisciplinary materials science and technology. Ranging from physics, chemistry, electrical and electronic engineering to the optical sciences, this field covers a wide range of competences and interdisciplinary knowledge.

About the Author:
Alan J. Heeger won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of conductive polymers. He began his research career at the Universoty of Pennsylvania, and has been a Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, since 1982. Since 1988 he has also been Adjunct Professor of Physics, The University of Utah, and has been Chief Scientist, UNIAX Corporation since 1999. In 2005 he became the Director of the Heeger Center for Advanced Materials, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea. He has won numerous awards and honours for his work.

Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci worked with Alan Heeger at the Institute for Polymers & Organic Solids, University of California between 1992 and 1996. He has since been a Professor, then Chair, at the Institute for Physical Chemistry at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, and is founding director of Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS). In 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the the Royal Society of Chemistry (UK).

Dr. Ebinazar Namdas has a Ph.D. in Physics and is a Lecturer at the Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics at the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. He has more than 10 years of research experience in the opto-electronic properties of organic semiconductors. Prior to joining UQ, Dr. Namdas was a Senior Researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.