Biology and Organic Semiconductors

Abstract

The question of the possibility of applying to biopolymers the ideas developed in the physics of the solid state has a fairly long history. In 1938 Jordan [1] and in 1941 Szent-Györgyi [2] suggested that proteins may possess the nature of semiconductors. Subsequent biophysical investigations of biopolymers at the molecular level led to the conviction that the phenomena taking place in ordered biological structures cannot be interpreted unless in some cases the biopolymer is considered as a solid body. This is explained, in the first place, by the fact that proteins consist of very large molecules with molecular weights reckoned in millions and, in the second place, by the fact that the enormous role played by the medium (for example, a solvent) in which the various processes take place is becoming ever clearer to chemists and biologists.

In the present chapter, in addition to the main material on the electrical conductivity of biopolymers the authors give in the shortest possible form some elementary information on the structure of the mitochondria and chloroplasts in order to show more clearly the role and position of electrical phenomena in the occurrence of many important biological processes.