News Release
For immediate release
News contacts: |
Jon Senderling, UTD (972) 883-2565 [email protected] |
Office
of the Dean |
RICHARDSON,
Texas ( January 22, 2001) - The
School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, the Department of Chemistry,
and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Education
of The University of Texas at Dallas are pleased and proud to announce
that Professor Alan MacDiarmid, Nobel laureate in Chemistry for the year
2000 and Blanchard Professor of Chemistry of the University of
Pennsylvania, will be visiting UTD February 8th
and 9th of 2001.
Professor
MacDiarmid will deliver a lecture (based on his Nobel Prize acceptance
speech presented at the awards ceremony in Stockholm) titled
"Plastics That Conduct Electricity:
From Chemistry to Nanotechnology" on Friday, February 9, 2001
at 1:30 P. M., in the UTD Conference Center auditorium,
to the Greater Dallas educational, scientific and technological
communities. He will also
deliver a special School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Colloquium,
titled “Electronic Polymers: New Horizons in Nanoelectronics and Cheap,
Disposable Electronic Circuits,” on Thursday, February 8, 2001 at 3:00
P. M. in UTD's McDermott Library lecture hall.
Alan
MacDiarmid, co-discoverer of conducting polymers, more commonly known as
"synthetic metals," began research on (SN)x, an unusual
polymeric material with metallic conductivity in 1973. His interest in
organic conducting polymers increased when in 1975 he was introduced to a
new form of polyacetylene by Dr. Hideki Shirakawa at the Tokyo Institute
of Technology. The ensuing collaboration between MacDiarmid, Shirakawa and
Alan Heeger (then at the Department of Physics at the University of
Pennsylvania) led to the historic discovery of metallic conductivity in an
organic polymer. The great
importance of this work was recognized when MacDiarmid, Heeger and
Shirakawa won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2000 (he was the chemist
responsible in 1977 for the chemical and electrochemical doping of
polyacetylene, (CH)x, the "prototype" conducting polymer, and
the "rediscovery" of polyaniline, now the foremost industrial
conducting polymer.)
“It is vitally important for a research university to bring
the world's greatest scientists to visit and share ideas on a regular
basis. Having someone with
the stature of Alan MacDiarmid visit UTD, so soon after his scientifically
revolutionary research was recognized with the Nobel Prize, is something
we can be proud of", said Dr. Hobson Wildenthal, Executive Vice
President and Provost of UTD.
Dr.
Wildenthal’s enthusiasm was echoed by Dr. Da Hsuan Feng, the newly
appointed Vice President for Research and Graduate Education of UTD.
“I am excited to have my good friend Alan to come to my new
“home” in Texas. While he
will unquestionably spark enormous interest among UTD’s faculty,
students and the scientific and technological community at large in the
region, I am equally certain he will sense, as I did, the exciting
intellectual and technological developments not only in UTD, but the
entire Telecom Corridor of northern Texas.”
Technological
opportunities for application of these conducting polymer in such diverse
areas as rechargeable batteries, electromagnetic interference shielding,
antistatic dissipation, stealth applications, corrosion inhibition,
flexible "plastic" transistors and electrodes,
electroluminescent polymer displays, to name but a few, continue to be
actively pursued.
Professor
MacDiarmid’s current scientific interests are centered around the most
technologically important conducting polymer, polyaniline, and its
oligomers with special interest in those isomeric forms which might
contribute to the greatest degree in promoting high conductivity and
enhanced mechanical properties in polyaniline. He is also actively
involved in the study of aniline oligomers in reversible sensors for
volatile organic compounds down to a few ppm. His studies on
light-emitting organic polymers involve investigation of the new
phenomenon in which traces of ionic species in the emissive layer greatly
enhance selected desirable characteristics.
Professor
MacDiarmid was born in New Zealand 71 years ago and after obtaining his
higher education at the University of New Zealand, the University of
Wisconsin and Cambridge University he joined the faculty of the University
of Pennsylvania in 1955, where he is currently Blanchard Professor of
Chemistry.
An
interesting coincidence connecting his New Zealand background and his
Nobel Prize is that his father had a high school classmate who also won a
Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1908 “for his investigations into the
disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive
substances". His name
was Ernest Rutherford, the “father” of radioactivity, whose impact on
the social, economic and intellectual demonstration of the 20th century
was immeasurable!
During
the past 20 years MacDiarmid has been involved exclusively with conducting
polymers, particularly the synthesis, chemistry, doping, electrochemistry,
conductivity, magnetic and optical properties and processing of
polyacetylene and polyaniline. He is the author/co-author of approximately
600 research papers and 20 patents. He is the recipient of numerous awards
and honorary degrees both nationally and internationally.
According
to Dr. Richard Caldwell and Dr. John Ferraris, Dean of the School of
Natural Science and Mathematics and Chairman of the Department of
Chemistry, respectively. “We are absolutely delighted that the School
and the Department have the great honor and opportunity of hosting one of
the most remarkable chemists in the world today.
We are truly excited to have Dr. MacDiarmid to come to visit our
school and we hope that this will allow our faculty and students to
establish productive scientific dialogues with him.”
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of
Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major
multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor,
enrolls approximately 6500 undergraduate and 4500 graduate students. UTD
faculty members have an established tradition of scholarly achievement and
extra-mural funding and its freshman class annually stands at the
forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores.
The university offers strong bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral
degrees through each its six large schools, Arts and Humanities, The Erik
Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, Human Development,
Management, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Social Sciences.
This comprehensive breadth is complemented by an historical and
authorized focus on engineering, management, and science.
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This page last updated April 5, 2001