S. C. Gau

Doped polyacetylene forms a new class of conducting polymers in which the electrical conductivity can be systematically and continuously varied over a range of eleven orders of magnitude. Transport studies and far-infrared transmission measurements imply a metal-to-insulator transition at dopant concentrations near 1%.

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEPREVArticleNEXTSynthesis of highly conducting films of derivatives of polyacetylene, (CH)xC. K. Chiang, M. A. Druy, S. C. Gau, A. J. Heeger, E. J. Louis, A. G. MacDiarmid, Y. W. Park, and H. ShirakawaCite this: J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1978, 100, 3, 1013–1015Publication Date (Print):February 1, 1978Publication History Published online1 May 2002Published inissue 1 February 1978https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja00471a081https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00471a081research-articleACS PublicationsRequest reuse permissionsArticle Views3558Altmetric-Citations671LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InRedditEmail Other access optionsGet e-Alertsclose Get e-Alerts

A series of experiments are reported which demonstrate that donors or acceptors can dope polyacetylene to n type or p type, respectively, and that the two kinds of dopants can compensate one another. The formation of a rectifying p-n junction is demonstrated. These results suggest the possibility of utilizing doped polyacetylene in a variety of potential semiconductor device applications.

A variety of rectifying junctions have been fabricated using doped and undoped (CH)x. Schottky diodes formed between metallic AsF5-doped (CH)x and n-type semiconductors indicate high [CH(AsF5)y]x electronegativity. The p-type character of undoped trans- (CH)x is confirmed by Schottky-barrier formation with low-work-function metals. An undoped p- (CH)x : n-ZnS heterojunction has been demonstrated with an open-circuit voltage of 0.8 V. These results point to the potential of (CH)x as a photosensitive material for use in solar-cell applications.

Photoelectrochemical photovoltaic cells have been fabricated using polyacetylene, (CH)x, as the active photoelectrode. Using a sodium polysulfide solution as electrolyte, Voc∼0.3 V and Isc∼40 μA/cm2 were obtained under illumination of approximately 1 sun. Under present conditions, the cell efficiency is limited by the series resistance, the small effective area of the electrode configuration, and the absorbance of the solution.