The Next Plastic Revolution

摘要

You might mistake Alan Heeger for a slimmed-down Jerry Garcia clone ― white mane and beard, laid-back attitude, all-black outfit. Ask the UC Santa Barbara physicist to empty his pockets and you won't find guitar picks and a roach clip. But he will produce a handful of transparent vials. Inside each is an ounce of clear liquid infused with invisible flecks of plastic that mimic the molecular structure and behavior of metal. Zap the solution with electricity ― or simply expose it to a bright light ― and the mixture emits a steady glow. Neat trick. Heeger and two colleagues won the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the accomplishment: coaxing conductivity from plastic. (The material in the vials is a luminescent semiconducting polymer.) Now their efforts, and those of a growing number of chemists, physicists, and engineers, are clearing the way for superthin digital screens, polymer computer memory, disposable electronics, and a new generation of smartcards.