Semiconductor devices from polyacetylene

Researchers at the University of Cambridge, U.K., have succeeded in fabricating semiconductor devices from polyacetylene, the simplest conducting organic polymer. The devices—transistors and diodes— perform "several orders of magnitude better" than those previously reported for similar materials, according to physicist David Bloor of Queen Mary College in London. Scientifically, the work is "enormously exciting," says chemistry professor Alan G. MacDiarmid of the University of Pennsylvania. But whether it will be technologically important "is difficult to say at this time," he adds. Scientists have been interested in replacing conventional inorganic semiconductors such as silicon or germanium in electronic devices with conductive organic polymers. But difficulties in the chemical processing and manipulation of these polymeric materials have frustrated attempts to incorporate them into such devices. Polyacetylene, for example, is a rigid polymer that is not readily soluble in organic solvents. The Cambridg...