Prof. Alan MacDiarmid

Nobel Laureate

Alan MacDiarmid was born in Masterton in 1927. He was educated at Hutt Valley High School and Victoria University. After completed a MSc in Chemistry he was awarded a Fullbright Fellowship to study for a PhD at the University of Wisconsin. He then won a Shell Scholarship, which enabled him to go to Cambridge University where he completed a second PhD. In 1955 after a year at St Andrews University in Scotland, Alan took a position at the University of Pennsylvania. He became a full Professor in 1964 and the distinguished Blanchard Professor in Chemistry from 1988. He was awarded the 1999 American Chemical Society Award in Materials Chemistry.

In 2000 he was awarded the Nobel prize for Chemistry; shared with physicist Alan Heeger (USA) and chemist Hideki Shirakawa (Japan) for the discovery and development of conductive organic polymers. In 2001 he was presented with the 2000 Rutherford Medal - New Zealand's highest science award.

The Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery that plastics can, after certain modifications, be made electrically conductive. The work progressed to yield important practical applications. Conductive plastics can be used for anti-static substances for photographic film and 'smart' windows that can exclude sunlight. Semi-conductive polymers have been applied in light-emitting diodes, solar cells and displays in mobile telephones. Future developments in molecular electronics will dramatically increase the speed and reduce the size of computers.

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