An Overview

Abstract

Polymers have emerged as an important class of materials that offers challenging opportunities for both fundamental research and new technological applications. One important advantage of polymers is their structural flexibility both at the molecular and bulk levels. Thus, one can use molecular engineering to tailor the structural features and functionality, either by chemical modification of the polymer backbone or by substitution of suitable side chains. Through chemical modification and physical processing it is also possible to cofltrol the precise conformation of a given polymer. These approaches provide exciting opportunities to impart specific multifunctional characteristics to a polymer. In addition, polymers in the bulk form can be fabricated into a variety of structures suitable for a wide range of applications. Examples range from high strength polymers used in new generations of aircraft, to new intrinsically, electrically conducting polymers for static elimination and electromagnetic interference reduction, to polymer channeled waveguides for exploring new nonlinear optical processes for photonics.