Nobel Laureate Comes to DCU
Wednesday 28 June

Nobel Laureate, Prof Alan MacDiarmid

The New Zealand born Nobel Laureate, Prof. Alan MacDiarmid, who discovered that modified plastics could conduct electricity, is to give the keynote lecture at a symposium in DCU, on Friday 30th June 2006 at 6pm.

Before his groundbreaking research it was assumed that all plastics were insulators, not capable of passing electrical current. He discovered that conducting polymers are obtained when certain molecules are polymerised. His revolutionary discovery meant that electrical circuit components, including batteries, can now be made out of plastics. In fact, polymers can be now used as insulators, as well as conductors or semi-conductors.

This keynote lecture is part of the forthcoming ‘Energy and Materials’ symposium at Dublin City University, which has been organized by the SFI-funded Adaptive Information Cluster. Professor MacDiarmid of the Departments of Chemistry and Physics, University of Texas at Dallas, and Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, USA, will give a lecture entitled: Harvesting Solar Energy to Produce Electricity or to Produce Organic Compounds: Which Way to Go? This important lecture will focus on new directions in Prof. MacDiarmid’s research and specifically, the use of conducting polymers for energy generation and storage.

Advances in the efficiency of energy conversion (e.g. sunlight to electricity) of these polymeric materials, and dramatic reduction in cost are already leading to the widespread use of the materials in everyday products. For example, motorway emergency phones, garden lighting and even parking meters are now powered by polymer based solar panels rather than the metal wires and batteries of the past. However, further advances are required if these materials are to make a serious contribution to the energy needs of society more generally.

For example, self-sustainable devices are critical for the development of distributed wireless sensor networks. In today’s increasingly polluted world, simple environmental sensing devices are needed to monitor air quality and water quality at many locations if an accurate picture is to be built up. Two key challenges that are inhibiting deployment of these devices are the cost of the sensor and the energy source. Batteries have only a certain shelf life and it is not feasible for individuals to replace them on a regular basis. The generation of highly efficient and compact solar panels capable of providing all power requirements for these devices will enable the numbers deployed to be scaled up dramatically.

The Adaptive Information Cluster
The AIC’s sensor research is focused on investigating the issue of integrating sensors into pervasive communication systems. The overall goal is to understand impact on how people and their environments interact dynamically. The AIC has unique capabilities to generate new types of sensing devices including transducers, chemical sensors and biosensors, and to integrate data from these devices with information from video cameras and acoustic sensors. In order to effectively collect, communicate and utilise the large quantities of sensor data generated by these networks, AIC researchers are investigating middleware for sensor networks, content extraction from audio-visual information, modelling collaborative reasoners and next-generation personalisation technologies. In addition, privacy and trust models are being designed into the infrastructure to ensure the appropriate use of the data generated.

Biography
Alan MacDiarmid was born in Masterton, New Zealand 79 years ago. He was educated at Hutt Valley High School and Victoria University. After completing a MSc in Chemistry he was awarded a Fullbright Fellowship to study for a PhD at the University of Wisconsin. He then won a Shell Scholarship, which enabled him to go to Cambridge University where he completed a second PhD. In 1955 after a year at St Andrews University in Scotland, Alan took a position at the University of Pennsylvania. He became a full Professor in 1964 and the distinguished Blanchard Professor in Chemistry from 1988. 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.

Professor MacDiarmid holds the James Von Ehr Distinguished Chair in Science & Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas while maintaining his Blanchard Chair in Chemistry, at a reduced level of input, at the University of Pennsylvania. He also has Institutes dedicated in his name in China, S. Korea, New Zealand, India and Brazil. He is author/co-author of over 600 research papers and approximately 25 patents.

In 2000 Prof. MacDiarmid was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with physicist Alan Heeger (USA) and chemist Hideki Shirakawa (Japan) for the discovery and development of metallic conductivity in organic polymers.

The seminar is part of a one-day symposium organised by the AIC http://www.adaptiveinformation.ie/, which will be held at DCU’s Nursing Building on Friday 30th June 2006 at 6pm.

For further information please contact maria.johnston@dcu.ie, or 086-8565527