ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the history of the first three primary conducting organic polymers from their origins in the early nineteenth century up through the polyacetylene work recognized by the Nobel Prize in 2000. The most common and successful examples of conductive organic polymers are doped conjugated organic polymers. The oxidation of conjugated organic polymers generates positive charge carriers and an increase of p-type character. The impact and importance of these organic conductors was recognized by the awarding of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Professors Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid, and Hideki Shirakawa "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers". Scientists began to speculate about the possibility that electronic conduction might be observed in organic materials as early as the 1930s. The history of polypyrrole dates back to 1915 with the work of Angelo Angeli at the University of Florence.
