Polymeric materials are typically considered as insulators, and in fact important applications do rely on their poor conductivity— e.g., electrical cable insulation and charged dielectric films (electrets, electrical analogs of magnets), the latter finding use in microphones. Research in the last decade, however, has lead to the discovery of polymeric materials with extremely high conductivity, approaching that of copper. This brief article will highlight recent work in the synthesis, processing and applications of these novel materials.

Typical polymers, the oxidant (or “dopant”) used to create carriers, and room temperature conductivities are given in Table I. A key feature shared by these materials is delocalized (at least over a few repeat units) π-electron density. Such unsaturated polymers facilitate carrier generation because of the ability for resonance derealization of the resulting radical ions, which can also offer good intramolecular carrier mobility. In addition, the geometry of π-orbitals allows for good orbital overlap and encourages inter molecular carrier transport.

That the polymer chains are considerably shorter than typical sample dimensions indicates that intermolecular transport is dominant, especially in view of the disorder observed in most conducting polymer systems. However, as the number of defects (crosslinks, “twists” which inhibit conjugation) decreases, it might be anticipated that carriers can travel greater distances along a chain before a (presumably) higher activation energy, inter molecular electron transfer becomes necessary, thus affording higher conductivity. Indeed, it has been recently reported that samples of very high quality, oriented polyacetylene, when treated with iodine, exhibit conductivities approaching that of copper at room temperature.