2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Alan Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 10 October 2000.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Alan Heeger was born in 1936 in Sioux City, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of California, Santa Barbara. Alan MacDiarmid was born in 1927 in Masterton, New Zealand, and is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Hideki Shirakawa was born in 1936 in Tokyo, Japan, and is affiliated with the University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba.

Why it matters

Plastics were long thought of as insulators. The three chemists showed in the 1970s that a plastic could be made to conduct electricity, opening the way to antistatic coatings, flexible displays and organic electronics.

The prize

The prize is worth 9 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.