Heeger, Alan J (1936– )

US physicist who with US chemist Alan G MacDiarmid and Japanese chemist Hideki Shirakawa shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000 for the discovery and development of conductive polymers. In 1975 Heeger was asked by MacDiarmid and Shirakawa to collaborate with them to study the possibility of an electrically conducting plastic. Conductive plastics, or ‘synthetic metals’ as they are sometimes called, have many potential applications, such as replacing inorganic semiconductor materials to produce more energy-efficient photodiodes and in the antistatic treatment of photographic films.

Heeger studied the physics behind the problem of conductive polymers and helped to form a theoretical basis for the conditions necessary for a polymer containing conjugated double bonds, such as polyacetylene, to become a conductor of electricity. Collaboration resulted in the development of a method of modifying polyacetylene by oxidation with the halogen vapour, iodine, to make the plastic electrically conductive.

Heeger was born in Sioux City, Iowa. He became full professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 1967. Since 1982, he has been professor of physics and director of the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids at the University of California at Santa Barbara and was appointed professor of materials there in 1987. In 1990, he founded the UNIAX Corporation to commercially develop polymer technology, where he holds the positions of chief scientist and chairman of the board.