ABSTRACT
Most organic polymers, such as polyethylene and polystyrene, exhibit negligible or no electrical conductivity and behave as insulators. However, conjugate polymers with alternate double and single bonds, such as polypyrrole and polythiophene, can be “doped” to obtain structures in which the electronic states are delocalized and the polymer becomes conducting. Polymers such as polyacetylene, polyaniline, polypyrrole, and polythiophene exhibit intrinsic conductivities that are in the semiconducting range (~10−8S/cm), and doped forms of these polymers can have conductivities that approach those of highly conducting materials. Doped polyacetylene, for example, can exhibit electrical conductivities as high as that of copper at room temperature (~103S/cm) (1).
