Heeger Wins Nobel Prize

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Heeger Wins Nobel Prize Dr. Alan J. Heeger, Nebraska '57, together with two others, has won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, a significant honor to a frater who is a brilliant scholar and research scientist.

Alan Heeger was initiated by his Sigma Omicron chapter at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, whence he had come from his hometown of Sioux City, Iowa. Intellectually curious, he early attracted attention in the physics department. Retired physics professors today recall him as "outstanding", "enthusiastic"; even teachers he did not know knew of him.

After earning his doctorate at Cal-Berkeley, he became a professor of physics at the U. of Pennsylvania and was a lecturer at Harvard. Since 1982, he has been a professor of physics at University of California at Santa Barbara, where he is also director of the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids.

While the Nobel Prize may make Alan Heeger world famous, he was already a man of considerable acclaim in his field. He has received honorary degrees from universities in four countries; he was editor-in-chief of the SyntheticMetals Journal, a prolific author of scientific articles in professional journals, the recipient of coveted awards and prizes in the United States and elsewhere, and the holder of patents in his field. He is also chairman of the UNIAX Corporation in California.

The 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers." Plastics were long thought to be non-conductors of electricity and indeed have been used as insulation. Yet Fra Heeger and his fellow Nobel Laureates are being rewarded for their revolutionary discovery that plastic can be made electrically conductive. Such a finding creates a new research field for chemists as well as physicists.

In the twenty-plus years since the discovery it has also yielded practical applications for photographic film, radiation shields for computer screens, "smart" windows, light-emitting diodes, solar cells, and displays in mobile phones and mini-format TV screens.

Research on conductive polymers is closely related to the new developments in molecular electronics. To the lay person this will mean transistors and other electronic components consisting of individual molecules. These will dramatically speed up and miniaturize our computers; a computer like one we now carry around will one day fit inside a watch.

The Nobel Prizes were established by Alfred Nobel, the 19th century chemist and inventor, and are decided annually (except for the Peace Prize) by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Fra Heeger traveled to Stockholm on December 10 where he received the Nobel Gold Medal from the hands of the King of Sweden; he also shared with his fellow chemistry laureates the monetary prize of $920,000. This is the hundredth year of the Nobel Prize.