The Colors of Polydiacetylenes: a Commentary

Polydiacetylenes (PDA) can take several colors, mostly "red" and "blue", and blue-to-red color transitions are usually considered as transitions from a well ordered state to a disordered one. Recent work on single isolated PDA chains shows that this is not correct: red chains can be quasi-perfect quantum wires. The transition is between two different chain conformations, and each may, or may not, be perfectly ordered. Disorder, when it occurs, is a side-product of the transformation.