Project Brief
General Competition (November 1993)Conducting Polymers: Three Dimensional Engineering for Advanced ApplicationsDevelop the basic technology and knowledge base for new conductive polymers with good thermal and environmental stability and a conductivity approaching that of metallic solder. Sponsor: IBM Corporation, T.J. Watson Research CenterIBM T.J. Watson Research CenterRoute 134, Kitchawan Road Yorktown Heights, NY 10598-0218
When first developed in the 1970s, conductive polymers stimulated a great deal of excitement over the possibility of strong, light-weight, easily-formed replacements for metal conductors in a wide variety of applications. Plastic "wiring" for integrated circuits could have a dramatic impact on production costs. Electrostatic discharge shields and electromagnetic interference shields for consumer products such as computers could be lightweight -- even molded into the case. Lightweight plastic rechargeable batteries would revolutionize the electric car market. To date, conducting polymers have not had wide commercial impact. The reason for this is that many of these materials are environmentally unstable and do not have adequate thermal stability which is necessary for high-temperature molding of structural parts. In addition, the conductivity of most of these materials is orders of magnitude lower than metals like copper, silver or gold. Most research in the field has focused on the one-dimensional "backbone" structure of these polymers. This research has produced many new materials and new concepts in this area. However, it is the three-dimensional structure of polymers that more often determines the overall properties of polymers. A multidisciplinary team led by the IBM Research Division's T.J. Watson Research Center, using computational chemistry and computer modeling, will focus on the purposeful modification of the three-dimensional structure or three-dimensional engineering of these materials to result in polymers that are environmentally stable, thermally stable, and have conductivity approaching that of copper.
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