A class of conducting polymers having nonconjugate backbones.

Having a fully conjugated backbone is usually considered to be a necessary condition for a polymer to be electrically conducting. This paper will demonstrate that, in association with appropriate substituents a nonconjugated polymeric system may also become electrically conducting. The chemical constitution, electrical transport and optical properties of the conducting complexes of a specific class of such nonconjugated systems are discused in this article. The details of the origin of conductivity for such nonconjugated systems is studied for a specific example namely 1,4 cis-polyisoprene which is considered to be a prototype for this class. This is the first time that conducting complexes having isolated double bond structures being reported.