Electronic Properties of Conjugated Polymers

The International Winter School on Electronic Properties of Conjugated Polymers held March 14-211987 in Kirchberg (Austria) was a sequel to a meeting held in Kirchberg two years before on a similar subject. The 1987 winter school was organized in cooperation with the Bundesministerium fiir Wissenschaft und Forschung in Austria and the Bundesministerium fiir Forschung und Technologie in the Federal Republic of Germany. The basic idea of the meeting was to provide an opportunity for experienced scientists from universities and industry to discuss their most recent re­ sults and for students and young scientists to inform themselves about the present state of the research in this field. As in 1985 the scientific interest was concentrated on the electronic structure of various conjugated polymers and related compounds. The focus of interest in the field now appears to have broadened and cov­ ers not only conductivity and relaxation phenomena of polyacetylene but also nonlinear optical properties highly oriented and single-crystal poly­ mers and electrochemical and opto-electrochemical properties of special materials such as polypyrrole and polyaniline. Exciting results on conduc­ tivity - the mass specific conductivity (i.e. the conductivity divided by the density) of polyacetylene is more than twice that of copper (!) - and a detailed interpretation of the meaning of conjugation length are reported.