Photophysics polymer heterojunctions

A.C. Morteani. The electronics and photophysics of polymer heterojunctions, PhD Thesis, University of Cambridge (2004). 

A.C. Morteani, Ph.D. Thesis, The Electronics and Photophysics of Polymer Heterojunctions, University of Cambridge, 2005. 

The photophysics of jt-conjugated polymers are reviewed in detail in other chapters of this book. (See, for example, Chapter 3.) Here, we focus on the electronic and photophysical phenomena that occur at the heterojunction between two different semiconductor polymers. The heteroj unctions are formed by combining four different polyfluorene copolymers in blend or bilayer thin films and are investigated using time-resolved and steady-state, temperature- and elec-tric-field-dependent photoluminescence measurements as well as electroluminescence and time-resolved spectroscopy. We review a body of work carried out in our laboratories over the last few years, and published in numerous journal articles (see refs. [13-17]). 

In Section 2.1.4, the electronic and photophysical properties of donor-acceptor or type-II heterojunctions between two semiconductor polymers were investigated. Exciplex formation was found to be a general phenomenon for type-II heterojunctions between polyfluorene copolymers. These are among the most widely used materials in polymer optoelectronics, but the presence of exciplexes had not yet been fully appreciated. This is because the exciplex population is often depopulated via efficient endothermic transfer towards the exciton, which leads to bulk exciton instead of exciplex emission. However, via time- and temperature-depen-dent photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy the exciplex states can be identified. Employing a relationship known from small-molecule solution systems that relates the relative HOMO and LUMO levels of the molecules to the exciplex emis-... 

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