Molecular Wires, Molecular Transducers and Molecular Devices

With reference to biological systems, intelligent materials possess the ability, at the molecular level, to read and discriminate the chemical and physical informations from their environment, to store and process these informations, and finally to deliver an answer. Molecular transducers and memories will have thus to be designed, and as the first important step, a macroscopic network of molecular wires has to be built, showing high charge transport properties. The achievement of such high carrier mobilities in organic materials will open the field of molecular devices. As the second step, molecular transducers have to be built by the functionalization of these molecular wires with prosthetic groups presenting specific interactions with the chemical and the physical environment. Both of these steps have been achieved by the molecular engineering of conjugated oligomers and polymers, and examples will be given on chemical and physical recognition.