Models conjugated polymer excited state

D McBranch, MB Sinclair. Ultrafast photoinduced absorption in nondegenerate ground-state conjugated polymers Signatures of excited states. In NS Sariciftci, ed. Nature of the Photoexcitations in Conjugated Polymers Semiconductor Band vs. Exciton Model, New York World Scientific, 1997. 

We Initiate here the microscopic description of PDA within the ir-electron framework of Parlser-Parr-Pople (PPP) theory. Quite aside from the crystallinity and Interesting nonlinear optical properties of PDAs, we are convinced that related it-electron descriptions should apply to PA, PDA, and other conjugated polymers. Furthermore, the nature of the low-lying excited states of polymers Is a prerequisite for understanding their relaxation and dynamics. In sharp contrast to ir-electron models, a more realistic treatment of triple bonds leads to Important and previously overlooked Coulomb correlations. We focus below on the novel aspects of excitations In ene-yne systems. 

Our goal is to model quantitatively 7r-electronic contributions to both vibrational and electronic spectra. The general e-ph analysis introduced in Section II combines the microscopic AM formalism [18,19] with the spectroscopic ECC model [22]. The reference force field F for PA provides an experimental identiHcation of delocalization effects. Transferable e-ph coupling constants are presented in Section III for polyenes and isotopes of trans- and a s-PA. The polymer force field in internal coordinates directly shows greater delocalization in t-PA, while coupling to C—C—C bends illustrates V(/ ) participation and different coupling constants a(/ a) and a(Jis) in Eq. (3) support an exponential r(/ ). NLO spectra of PDA crystals and films are presented in Section IV, with multiphoton resonances related to excited states of PPP models and vibronic contributions included in the Condon approximation. Linear and electroabsorption (EA) spectra of PDA crystals provide an experimental separation of vibrational and electronic contributions, and the full tt-tt spectrum is needed to model EA. We turn in Section V to correlated descriptions of electronic excitations, with particular attention to theoretical and experimental evidence for one- and two-photon thresholds of centrosymmetric backbones. The final section comments on parameters for conjugated polymers, extensions, and open questions. 

The role of disorder in the photophysics of conjugated polymers has been extensively described by the work carried out in Marburg by H. Bassler and coworkers. Based on ultrafast photoluminescence (PL) (15], field-induced luminescence quenching [16J and site-selective PL excitation [17], a model for excited state thermalizalion was proposed, which considers interchain exciton migration within the inhomogenously broadened density of states. We will base part of the interpretation of our results in m-LPPP on this model, which will be discussed in some detail in Sections 8.4 and 8.6. 

The proposed scenario is mainly based on the molecular approach, which considers conjugated polymer films as an ensemble of short (molecular) segments. The main point in the model is that the nature of the electronic state is molecular, i.e. described by localized wavefunctions and discrete energy levels. In spite of the success of this model, in which disorder plays a fundamental role, the description of the basic intrachain properties remains unsatisfactory. The nature of the lowest excited state in m-LPPP is still elusive. Extrinsic dissociation mechanisms (such as charge transfer at accepting impurities) are not clearly distinguished from intrinsic ones, and the question of intrachain versus interchain charge separation is not yet answered. 

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