Number: 2006-028-1-400
Title: Terminology for conducting,
electroactive and field-responsive polymers
Task Group
Chairmen: Christopher
K. Ober and Jiri
Vohlidhal
Members: Alan
V. Chadwick, Michael
Hess, Kazuyuki Horie,
Jaroslav Kahovec,
Jung-Il Jin, Richard
G. Jones, M.
Nowakowska, François
Schué, and Jaroslav
Stejksal
Objective:
With the awarding of the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry for work
on semiconducting polymers and the recent advances in the realm
of organic electronics for displays, solar cells and other applications,
the entire field of electroactive polymers is of growing importance.
This project is aimed at proposing a list of terms and definitions
to be accepted and respected by chemists and others working as materials
scientists within academia and industry.
Description:
The physical and chemical properties of electroactive and field
responsive polymers and polymer molecules are being increasingly
investigated for scientific study, technology development and commercialization
by diverse scientific communities. In view of the rapid development
and steadily increasing number of applications of polymers as active
functional materials in a construction of integrated circuits and
electronic and optoelectronic devices such as diodes, light-emitting
diodes, switches, photovoltaic cells, analytical sensors, storage
batteries, etc., a need for effective and clear communication among
chemistry, polymer physics and materials communities is of increasing
importance. Chemical acronyms for the polymers being used, terms
for their properties and tools for characterization are diverse
and used with inconsistency. It is the aim of this project to provide
chemists, physicists and materials scientists with a useful glossary
that can facilitate this interdisciplinary communication and help
to understand the rationale lying behind the terms and definitions
originating from various fields of science and technology. In the
proposed glossary, the objects, processes and phenomena related
to this interdisciplinary field of science and technology will be
defined and reasonably explained. Particular attention will be paid
to relations between terms concerning identical or closely related
topics, which are independently defined in different ways in different
fields of science, such as delocalized radicals, ions and ion-radicals
on the one hand and various solitons and polarons on the other hand.
Both chemical and physical viewpoints will be presented and rationally
explained. An extended nomenclature is required to describe these
macroscopic systems, as already evidenced by the impossibility of
writing these introductory sentences without resorting to the use
of two such terms. Some terms will be of relatively recent introduction.
Other, older terms will be in common usage by physical chemists
and some by materials scientists, and perhaps more familiar to such
specialists than to polymer scientists. Many of the terms might
also be totally unfamiliar to scientists whose background is not
rooted in chemistry or material science. It is therefore necessary
to identify terms specific to field responsive polymers, and to
harmonize and enforce their use by the people active in the field.
The document will consist of a list of terms selected to describe
the different electroactive and field responsive polymers, their
methods of formation, their characterisation, their processing and
any terminology that is idiosyncratic to the techniques used for
their investigation. The definitions will be harmonized for acceptance
by the chemistry, polymer and materials communities.
We will also involve members of the polymer physics community.
To assist in achieving this assent, members of the learned societies
of different countries will be consulted to ensure that the definitions
are accepted worldwide.
