This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Xcentaur (talk | contribs) at 06:13, 29 March 2007 (link). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 06:13, 29 March 2007 by Xcentaur (talk | contribs) (link)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Alan Graham MacDiarmid ONZ (April 14 1927 - February 7 2007) received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2000.
Early life
He was born in Masterton, New Zealand. His family was relatively poor, and the Great Depression made life difficult. At around age ten, he developed an interest in chemistry from one of his father's old textbooks, and he taught himself from this book and from library books. He was educated at Hutt Valley High School and Victoria University.
Career
After completing a MSc in Chemistry, he later worked as an assistant at the chemistry department of Victoria University of Wellington, and studied there. He graduated in 1951 with first class honours, and won a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study for a PhD, which he received in 1953. He then won a Shell Scholarship, which enabled him to go to Cambridge University where he completed a second PhD, in 1955.
He worked in the School of Chemistry at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he spent a year.
He then took a position at the University of Pennsylvania. He became a full Professor in 1964. MacDiarmid spent the greater part of his career on the chemistry faculty of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), where he taught for 45 years. The first twenty years of his research at Penn focused on silicon chemistry. He was named Blanchard Professor of Chemistry in 1988.
Contributions to Chemistry
Conductive polymers
His best-known research was the discovery and development of conductive organic polymers ie. conductive polymers, or plastic materials that conduct electricity. He collaborated with the Japanese chemist Hideki Shirakawa and the American physicist Alan Heeger in this research. The three of them shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work.
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 are predicted to dramatically increase the speed and reduce the size of computers.
Other
MacDiarmid also traveled around the world for speaking engagements that impressed upon listeners the value of globalizing the effort of innovation in the 21st century. In one of his last courses, in 2001, MacDiarmid elected to lead a small seminar of incoming freshmen about his research activities. Prior in his career, he also taught at the University of Texas at Dallas. Overall, his name is on over 600 published papers and 20 patents.
Death
Towards the end of his life, MacDiarmid was ill with myelodysplastic syndrome. In early February 2007, he was planning to journey back to New Zealand to meet relatives, when he fell in his home in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. He died on February 7, 2007. He is survived by four children from his marriage to his first wife, Marian, who died in 1990. MacDiarmid is also survived by his second wife, the former Gayl Gentile.
Recognition
- He was awarded the 1999 American Chemical Society Award in Materials Chemistry.
- In 2001 he was presented with the 2000 Rutherford Medal - New Zealand's highest science award, and made a member of the Order of New Zealand.
- The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at Victoria University is named after him.
Selected Publications
- Chiang, C.K.; Druy, M.A.; Gau, S.C.; Heeger, A.J.; Louis, E.J.; MacDiarmid, A.G.; Park, Y.W.; Shirakawa, H., "Synthesis of Highly Conducting Films of Derivatives of Polyacetylene, (CH)x," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 100, 1013 (1978).
- MacDiarmid, A.G.; Chiang, J.-C.; Richter, A.F.; Epstein, A.J., "Polyaniline: A New Concept in Conducting Polymers," Synth. Met., 18, 285 (1987).
- Kaner, R.B.; MacDiarmid, A.G., "Plastics That Conduct Electricity," Scientific American, 106 (February 1988).
- MacDiarmid, A.G.; Epstein, A.J., " 'Synthetic Metals': A Novel Role for Organic Polymers," Macromol. Chem., 51, 11 (1991).
- MacDiarmid, A.G.; Epstein, A.J., "Science and Technology of Conducting Polymers," in Frontiers of Polymer Research, P.N. Prasad and J.K. Nigam, Eds., Plenum Press, New York, 1991, p. 259.
- Wang, Z.H.; Li, C.; Scherr, E.M.; MacDiarmid, A.G.; Epstein, A.J., "Three Dimensionality of 'Metallic' States in Conducting Polymers: Polyaniline," Phys. Rev. Lett., 66, 1745 (1991).
- MacDiarmid, A.J.; Epstein, A.J., "The Concept of Secondary Doping as Applied to Polyaniline," Synth. Met., 65, 103 (1994).
- A.G. MacDiarmid, Y. Zhou, J. Feng, G.T. Furst and A.M. Shedlow, "Isomers and Isomerization Processes in Poly-Anilines," Proc. ANTEC '99, Soc. Plastics Engr., 2, 1563 (1999).
- A.G. MacDiarmid, I.D. Norris, J.W.E. Jones, M.A. El-Sherif, J. Yuan, B. Han and F.K. Ko, "Polyaniline Based Chemical Transducers with Sub-micron Dimensions," Polymeric Mat. Sci. & Eng., 83, 544 (2000).
- I.D. Norris, M.M. Shakar, F.K. Ko and A.G. MacDiarmid, "Electrostatic Fabrication of Ultrafine Conducting Fibers: Polyaniline/Polyethylene Oxide Blends," Synth. Met., 114, 2 (2000).
- A.G. MacDiarmid, J. W.E. Jones, I.D. Norris, J. Gao, J. A.T. Johnson, N.J. Pinto, J. Hone, B. Han, F.K. Ko, H. Okuzaki and M. Llaguno, "Electrostatically-Generated Nanofibers of Electronic Polymers," Synth. Met., 119, 27-30 (2001).
- J.Y. Shimano and A.G. MacDiarmid, "Phase Segregation in Polyaniline: A Dynamic Block Copolymer," Synth. Met., 119, 365-366 (2001).
- P.C. Wang and A.G. MacDiarmid, "Dependency of Properties of In Situ Deposited Polypyrrole Films on Dopant Anion and Substrate Surface," Synth. Met., 119, 267-268 (2001).
- D. Hohnholz and A.G. MacDiarmid, "Line Patterning of Conducting Polymers: New Horizons for Inexpensive, Disposable Electronic Devices," Synth. Met., 121, 1327-1328 (2001).
- L. Premvardhan, L.A. Peteanu, P.-C. Wang and A.G. MacDiarmid, "Electronic Properties of the Conducting Form of Polyaniline from Electroabsorption Measurements," Synth. Met., 116, 157-161 (2001).
External links
- Biography on Nobel Prize website
- McDiarmid Institute Web Site
- MacDiarmid's Page at The University of Texas at Dallas
- MacDiarmid's page at the University of Pennsylvania
- New Zealand Edge biography
- Interview with Alan MacDiarmid Freeview video provided by the Vega Science Trust.
- Kiwi Nobel winner McDiarmid dies
References
- "The Long and Winding Road to the Nobel Prize for Alan MacDiarmid". Almanac (University of Pennsylvania newsletter), 47(8), 17 October 2000.
- Sandy Smith, "Alan MacDiarmid". The Penn Current, 26 October 2000.
- Joan P. Capuzzi Giresi, "The Boy Chemist at 75. Pennsylvania Gazette, March 2002.
- "Nobel-Winner MacDiarmid Dies". Pennsylvania Gazette, March 2007.
- "NZ Nobel Prize winner dies". NZPA. 2007-02-08. Retrieved 2007-02-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help)
- Nobel laureates in Chemistry
- New Zealand chemists
- 1927 births
- 2007 deaths
- New Zealand-Americans
- Members of the Order of New Zealand
- Academics of the University of St Andrews
- University of Pennsylvania faculty
- University of Texas at Dallas faculty
- Members and associates of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Alumni of the University of Cambridge
- University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni