Hideki Shirakawa

Facts

Hideki Shirakawa

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Hideki Shirakawa
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000

Born: 20 August 1936, Tokyo, Japan

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

Prize motivation: “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers”

Prize share: 1/3

Work

Plastic material is composed of polymers—very large molecules that take the form of long chains of smaller molecules. Plastic usually does not conduct electricity, but at the end of the 1970s Hideki Shirakawa, Alan Heeger and Alan MacDiarmid demonstrated that it is possible to produce conductive polymers. This requires alternating single and double bonds between carbon atoms in the chain and doping the polymers through the addition of suitable atoms so that free electrons or holes appear after the electrons. Conductive polymers can be used in electronics and other applications.

To cite this section
MLA style: Hideki Shirakawa – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Mon. 25 Nov 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2000/shirakawa/facts/>

Back to top Back To Top Takes users back to the top of the page

Nobel Prizes and laureates

Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.

See them all presented here.

Illustration

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.