This book constitutes the Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research
Workshop on Conjugated Polymers held at the University of Mons, Belgium,
during the first week of September 1989. The Workshop was attended by
about fifty scientists representing most of the leading research groups
within NATO countries, that have contributed to the development of
conjugated polymeric materials. The program was focused on applications
related to electrical conductivity and nonlinear optics. The attendance
was well balanced with a blend of researchers from academic, industrial,
and government labs, and including synthetic chemists, physical
chemists, physicists, materials scientists, and theoreticians. The
Workshop provided an especially timely opportunity to discuss the
important progress that has taken place in the field of Conjugated
Polymers in the late eighties as well as the enormous potential that
lies in front of us. Among the recent significant developments in the
field, we can cite for instance: (i) The discovery of novel synthetic
routes affording conjugated polymers -that are much better
characterized, especially through control of the molecular weight; -
that can be processed from solution or the melt; the early promise that
conducting polymcrs would constitute materials combining the electrical
conductivities of metals with the mechanical properties of plastics is
now being realized; -that can reach remarkably high conductivities.