Symposium
Editors: J. Kahovec
Wiley-VCH, 2004, pp. 1-580
ISBN 3-527-31045-2
Preface
The
21st Discussion Conference "Electrical and Related
Properties of Polymers and Other Organic Solids"
was the 62nd meeting in the series of the Prague Meetings
on Macromolecules. The meeting was organized under the
auspices of the International Union of Pure and Applied
Chemistry (IUPAC) in the Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry,
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, from July 14-18,
2002. Simultaneously, this meeting was the 9th International
Conference on Electrical and Related Properties of Organic
Solids (ERPOS).
The
first ERPOS conference was held in 1974, in Karpacz (Poland),
as the Summer School on Electrical Properties of Organic
Solids. The success of this first meeting gave rise to
regular ERPOS conferences which, over 28 years, have grown
into a well established series. The conferences ERPOS-1
to ERPOS-5 were organized by physical chemists from the
Institute of Organic and Physical Chemistry of the Technical
University of Wroclaw.
At
that time, several groups at universities and institutes
of the Academy of Sciences of the former Eastern block
were active in studying the chemistry and physical properties
of molecular materials. Personal contact of scientists
with their colleagues from abroad, however, was quite
difficult due to economic and political reasons. Presentation
of the results on an international forum was thus often
impossible. Therefore, the idea of bringing together scientists
from both parts of the divided world and creating a meeting
point seemed timely.
Italian scientists from the Istituto di Fotochimica e
Radiazioni d'Alta Energia, Bologna, organized the ERPOS-6
conference in beautiful Capri.
The
7th conference returned to Poland, being again organized
by the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
of the Technical University of Wroclaw. During that meeting,
in view of political changes in Europe, it was decided
to vary the venues of the ERPOS conferences and Prague
(Czech Republic) was chosen as the next venue.
In the course of the years, ERPOS conferences have gathered
scientists from all over the world actively engaged in
the study of various properties (electrical, spectroscopic,
optical, structural and many others) of organic materials
giving them a unique opportunity to exchange ideas with
researchers of different backgrounds and interest.
A
high scientific level of the ERPOS conferences was possible
due to active participation of world-recognized scientists
who kindly agreed to serve in international advisory committees,
delivered lectures reporting on the state of the art in
their fields, but also due to scientists bringing "hot"
subjects, and many young scientists and students attending
these meetings with enthusiasm. No one is able to quantity
how many fruitful cross-disciplinary collaborations have
been initiated and how many scientific papers appeared
as a result of these meetings.
The
Prague meeting in 2002 was organized at a fascinating
time characterized by the strong input of organic materials,
both low-molecular-weight and polymers, into the application
sphere. The Nobel Prize winners, Professors Alan J. Heeger,
Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa characterized the
time in their Nobel Foundation lecture as "the era
of the fourth generation of polymeric materials".
The
Prague meeting aimed to provide a forum for scientists
specializing in electronic properties of organic materials.
The topics of the conference included various aspects
of molecular materials, liquid crystals, organized structures
of macromolecules and supramolecules, properties of nanostructures
and materials such as charge carrier generation, transport,
trapping and recombination, photoelectrical phenomena,
electroluminescence, molecular electronics, nonlinear
optical phenomena, photorefractivity, optical switching,
data recording and storage. A total of 126 participants
from 24 countries contributed to the scientific program
of the conference. There were 12 main lectures, 25 special
lectures and 93 poster presentations. An interesting panel
discussion "From Molecular Crystals to Polymers and
Single Molecules" was moderated by Professors R.
W. Munn, J. Sworakowski and R. M. Metzger. The discussion
was opened by the latter with his lecture "Unimolecular
Rectifiers".
All
the conference contributions and accompanying discussions
were very helpful in getting a better understanding of
electrical and optical properties of organic solids, and
in particular charge carrier generation, transport and
trapping, non-linear optics, photorefractivity, transistors,
photodetectors, light-emitting diodes, rectifiers, and
molecular devices. We believe that the papers presented
as main and special lectures and posters, collected in
this volume, will provide the same benefit to the readers.
The
participants created not only an excellent professional
forum but also a very agreeable company. We wish to express
our gratitude to all participants and sponsors for supporting
the meeting, to the organizing committee for their very
good work and to the contributors for their carefully
prepared papers.
S.
Nešpurek,
Conference Chairman
J.
Pfleger,
Conference Co-chairman
J.
Kahovec,
PMM Editor
