  Conducting polymers have become standard engineering materials, used in
manyelectronic devices. Despite this, there is a lack of understanding of the
microscopicorigin of the conducting properties, especially at realistic device
field strengths. Wepresent simulations of doped poly(p-phenylene) (PPP) using a
Su-Schrieffer-Heeger(SSH) tight-binding model, with the electric field included
in the Hamiltonian througha time-dependent vector potential via Peierls
substitution of the phase factor. We findthat polarons typically break down
within less than a picosecond after the field hasbeen switched on, already for
electric fields as low as around 1.6 mV/{\AA}. This is a fieldstrength common
in many flexible organic electronic devices. Our results challenge therelevance
of the polaron as charge carrier in conducting polymers for a wide range
ofapplications.
