The new horizon broadened by the structure in atom: conductive plastics

Numerous materials in nature have features needed by people such as solidity, lightness, flexibility. However, it may not always be possible to use the perfectly designed materials in nature commonly used in everyday life. The reason for this is that a high level of technology is required in order to imitate these materials. (Harun Yahya, Miracle in the Atom)

The use of natural organic materials like skin, bone, tree and cellulose fibrous in time, could not meet the ever-growing demand. Therefore, scientists began to produce artificial materials and had great success in doing so.

Today, commonly used nylon, rubber, plastic and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) have been found as a result of the studies of scientists to produce artificial materials. Plastics scientifically named polymers are being used in a number of places from offices to homes and streets. The word polymer is a combination of the words poly: many and meros: part. Polymer materials are composed of giant molecules formed by small molecule chains that look like one another and pieced together in the form of a chain. These molecules are used in the basic structure of many things from nylon bags to car tires; from children toys to foot bed of boots used in winter.

Even though they are produced in a cheap and easy way, polymers have some disadvantages. For example, they do not decay and shatter and so not lead to any great scale pollution on the ground and in the sea as they stay unspoiled for hundreds of years when thrown away.

Regardless of the fact that polymers have some disadvantages like not being shattered by factors such as bacteria etc., they also have some good features: They are non-conducting. Therefore, electric cables are covered with cables made up of polymers to avoid short circuits. The reason for this is that they have the ability to stretch just as they have the ability to conduct.

Discovery with Nobel Prize

Scientists called Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. Diarmid and Hideli Shirakawa have achieved to change the electrical resistivity feature of plastic. Now polymer (polyacetylene) can also be made as conductive as a metal. So this great achievement was awarded with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in year 2000.

In 1977, Shirakawa, Mac Diarmid and Heeger; observed that polyacetylene films are 109 times more conductive than their initial states as a result of their reaction with chlorine, bromine and iodine steams. They increased the conductibility of polyacetylene to 105 S/m2 with this method. The conductibility of copper commonly used in electric cables is around 108 S/m.

Great Changes in Electronic Technology

Scientists believe that conductive plastics will result in great changes in technology world. These plastics are to be used in the production of lighter and smaller circuit elements as well as in the manufacture of ghost planes not caught on the radar. In addition, electro chromic features of some conductive polymers enable these polymers to be used in “smart windows” that darken under sun light in summer. After the discovery of conductive polymers in 1977, science of conductive polymer began to develop quickly in many fields. Lastly, as high purity polymers are synthesized, semi-conductive polymers began to be used in the production of electronic circuits. In the near future, transistors that are the basic parts of electronic circuits, FETs and photodiodes will be made up of conductive plastics.

It is important that tools used in the military and space technology are light. If electronic circuit and batteries can be made up of polymer, then the weight of these tools would be decreased by 90%.  In the future it will be possible to push a car, which is built with motor blocks made up of aluminum, most sections made up of hard plastic and electric circuits made up of conductive polymer, with only one hand.

Today there is great work done directed to nanotechnology. However there is one basic problem faced with those who work with nanotechnology:  To connect circuits built with nanotechnology to one another or to macro systems that we can use. To try something like that with the copper wires used now is like getting a warp through a pin hole. On top of that, when you reduce the connections of normal cables to sizes used in nanotechnology, the conductivity feature changes and they cannot do the job it is expected to do. At this point the role of conductive plastics comes up. Because conductive plastics are more suitable to be reduced and used, and they do not neglect their job when reduced. If this can be done, most probably circuits with microscopic size will be connected to conductive polymer wires and it will be possible to reduce the size of these circuits from 200 nanometers to 0,2 nanometers. This reduction in size can increase the speed and memory of computers 108 times. A development like this would be equal to the 40-year development in computer technology. Consequently, conductive polymers could have a very important role in the world of molecular electronics.

Until a short while ago, no one has thought that a material used to avoid electricity can also be used for electrical conduction. Conductive polymers are now a part of our daily life. As scientists discover the features of creation in the atom, they will have the means to produce many more new materials.

Works done about the shape, movement and formation of the atom, revealed the fact that there is a flawless order, an infallible balance and a conscious Creation in the atom. Almighty Allah created the atom in the way to determine the optical, mechanical, conductance and magnetic characteristics of matters. Each new scientific study about atoms conduce us to see the evidences of both Allah and His supreme Creation and light the way of discovering new materials.