ABSTRACT

In the decades following the seminal work on conductive polyacetylene in the 1970s, there has been an immense effort and numerous accomplishments in the synthesis and development of conjugated polymers. Through the development of new conjugated polymer systems, the field evolved allowing scientists to address a large number of diverse properties and applications including light emission, charge transport, electrochromism, photovoltaics, and bioelectronics. At the heart of each of these is the development of a deep understanding of structure-property relationships. Attaining optimized structures has required a broad range of molecular and polymeric synthetic advances, which have been detailed in multiple chapters in the first three editions of the Handbook of Conducting Polymers (HBCP).