Alan MacDiarmid

Alan Graham MacDiarmid ( Alan G. MacDiarmid ) ( born April 14 1927 in Masterton, New Zealand, † February 7, 2007 in Philadelphia ) was a New Zealand chemist. Along with Alan J. Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa, he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of conductive polymers in 2000.

Life

MacDiarmid was born in 1927 in Masterton, New Zealand. His family was relatively poor, and the Great Depression made ​​life difficult. With about ten years, he developed an interest in chemistry through an old textbook of his father and suitable knowledge about it to through this book and books from the library. He later worked as an assistant at the Department of Chemistry, Victoria University of Wellington and eventually studied there. He graduated in 1951 with honors and won a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Wisconsin for promotion. He later worked for a short time at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. MacDiarmid was over 50 years a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Honors

• The MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology at Victoria University of Wellington was named after him.
• Friendship Award (China ) (2004 )
• Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000 with Alan Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa