Electronic And Optical Properties Of Conjugated Polymers

Conjugated polymers have important technological applications, including solar cells and light emitting devices. They are also active components in many important biological processes. In recent years there have been significant advances in our understanding of these systems, owing to both improved experimental measurements and the development of advanced computational techniques. The aim of this book is to describe and explain the electronic and optical properties of conjugated polymers. It focuses on the three key roles of electron-electron interactions, electron-nuclear coupling, and disorder in determining the character of the electronic states, and it relates these properties to experimental observations in real systems. A number of important optical and electronic processes in conjugated polymers are also described. The second edition has a more extended discussion of excitons in conjugated polymers. There is also a new chapter on the static and dynamical localization of excitons.

Conjugated polymers have important technological applications, including solar cells and light emitting devices. They are also active components in many important biological processes. In recent years there have been significant advances in our understanding of these systems, owing to both improved experimental measurements and the development of advanced computational techniques. The aim of this book is to describe and explain the electronic and optical properties of conjugated polymers. It focuses on the three key roles of electron-electron interactions, electron-nuclear coupling, and disorder in determining the character of the electronic states, and it relates these properties to experimental observations in real systems. A number of important optical and electronic processes in conjugated polymers are also described. The second edition has a more extended discussion of excitons in conjugated polymers. There is also a new chapter on the static and dynamical localization of excitons.

This book constitutes the Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Conjugated Polymers held at the University of Mons, Belgium, during the first week of September 1989. The Workshop was attended by about fifty scientists representing most of the leading research groups within NATO countries, that have contributed to the development of conjugated polymeric materials. The program was focused on applications related to electrical conductivity and nonlinear optics. The attendance was well balanced with a blend of researchers from academic, industrial, and government labs, and including synthetic chemists, physical chemists, physicists, materials scientists, and theoreticians. The Workshop provided an especially timely opportunity to discuss the important progress that has taken place in the field of Conjugated Polymers in the late eighties as well as the enormous potential that lies in front of us. Among the recent significant developments in the field, we can cite for instance: (i) The discovery of novel synthetic routes affording conjugated polymers -that are much better characterized, especially through control of the molecular weight; - that can be processed from solution or the melt; the early promise that conducting polymcrs would constitute materials combining the electrical conductivities of metals with the mechanical properties of plastics is now being realized; -that can reach remarkably high conductivities.

This comprehensive text provides a basic introduction to the optical properties of polymers, as well as a systematic overview of the latest developments in their nano engineering applications—including L-GRIN lenses, 3D holographic displays, optical gene detection, and more. Covering an increasingly important class of materials relevant not only in academic research but also in industry, this book emphasizes the importance of nano engineering in improving the fundamental optical properties of the functional polymers, elaborating on high-level research while thoroughly explaining the underlying principles.

Vol. 1: Semiconductors;Vol. 2: Semiconductors Devices;Vol. 3: High-Tc Superconductors and Organic Conductors; Vol. 4: Ferroelectrics and Dielectrics; Vol. 5: Chalcogenide Glasses and Sol-Gel Materials; Vol. 6 Nanostructured Materials; Vol. 7: Liquid Crystals, Display and Laser Materials; Vol. 8: Conducting Polymers; Vol. 9: Nonlinear Optical Materials; Volume 10: Light-Emitting Diodes, Lithium Batteries and Polymer Devices

This book deals with electrical, electrochemical, structural, magnetic, optical and lattice dynamical properties of conjugated polymers such as polyaniline, polyacetylene, polydiacetylene, polypyrrole, polyparaphenylene and polythiophene. Several new conjugated systems and model polyenes are also considered. Since the previous winter school on this topic held in 1985, the focus of interest in the field has broadened and now covers not only conductivity and relaxation phenomena of polyacetylene but also nonlinear optical properties, highly oriented and single crystal polymers, and electrochemical and opto-electrochemical properties of special materials. Particular attention is paid in this volume to the possible applications of these systems, for example, in electrochemical cells as electrode materials and in nonlinear optics devices, which now appear to be much more realistic than previously. The detailed contributions are complemented by short reviews of thin film polymers (Langmuir-Blodgett layers), filled polymers, ferromagnetic polymers, superconducting low-dimensional systems (including organic superconductors and high-temperature superconductors) and the application of fractal models to polymers.

"Offers background information, methods of characterization, and applications for electrical and optical polymers, including biopolymers, and tutorial sections that explain how to use the techniques."