Polyacetylence, (CH)x is the simplest conjugated polymer. Prestine polyacetylence is a good insulator, whereas its highly doped version exhibits metal-like electrical conductivity. This book gives a detailed introduction to this rapidly-developing field is given along with a collection of original papers. The main purpose is to help chemists and physicists grasp the main ideas and most important facts; an expert may also find it useful as a reference volume.

This book reviews the current understanding of electronic, optical and magnetic properties of conjugated polymers in both the semiconducting and metallic states. It introduces in particular novel phenomena and concepts in these quasi one-dimensional materials that differ from the well-established concepts valid for crystalline semiconductors. After a brief introductory chapter, the second chapter presents basic theore tical concepts and treats in detail the various models for n-conjugated polymers and the computational methods required to derive observable quantities. Specific spatially localized structures, often referred to as solitons, polarons and bipolarons, result naturally from the interaction between n-electrons and lattice displacements. For a semi-quantitative understanding of the various measure ments, electron-electron interactions have to be incorporated in the models; this in turn makes the calculations rather complicated. The third chapter is devoted to the electrical properties of these materials. The high metallic conductivity achieved by doping gave rise to the expression conducting polymers, which is often used for such materials even when they are in their semiconducting or insulating state. Although conductivity is one of the most important features, the reader will learn how difficult it is to draw definite conclusions about the nature of the charge carriers and the microscopic transport mechanism solely from electrical measurements. Optical properties are discussed in the fourth chapter.

In recent years it has become increasingly appreciated that fundamentally nonlinear excitations - solitons - play an essential role in an incredible variety of natural systems. These solitons, which frequently exhibit remarkable stability under interactions and perturbations, often dominate the transport, response, or structural properties of the systems in which they occur. In this article, we present an introduction to the solitons that occur in quasi-one-dimensional conducting polymers (synmetals) and related systems. The relevance of this subject to molecular electronic devices is twofold. First, many of these materials have molecular structures similar to possible prototype molecular switches. Second, to understand in detail how a molecular electronic device could work, it is essential to have a broad perspective on the nature of possible excitations in a variety of natural and synthetic molecular materials. 51 references.

The unique properties of conducting and semiconducting (conjugated) polymers make them one of the most attractive areas of interdisciplinary materials science and technology. Written by a pioneer in the field, this book is the first aimed at teaching graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, and specialists in industry about this exciting field.

This book deals with the practical fundamentals and applications of conducting polymers. Written from a pedagogical point of view and at a very basic level, it provides a thorough grounding in CPs ideal for further work, as a reference, or as a supplementary course text.

The second edition of this popular textbook thoroughly covers the practical basics and applications of conducting polymers. It also addresses materials that have gained prominence since the first edition of this book was published, namely carbon nanotubes and graphene. The features of this new edition include: New and updated chapters on novel concepts in conducting polymers Details on interdisciplinary applications of conducting polymers An in depth description of classes of conducting polymers

Scientific accomplishments during the period of this contract were reported in the form of published papers. More generally, we contributed in an important way to the development of the field with important contributions in all aspects of current activity. To single out a few of these we note the following: Demonstration of the generic importance of nonlinear excitations in conducting polymers (Solitons, Polarons and Bipolarons); Demonstration of the importance of nonlinear excitations in conjugated polymers to the nonlinear optical properties of these polymers; Demonstration of the control of the band gap through molecular design; Demonstration that the concept developed for solid state materials can be generalized to conducting polymers in solution. A complete list of the Publications, Patents, Presentations, Honors, etc is included in the End-of-The-Year Reports which were submitted and are on file at ONR. (MJM).