Polysilane chains optical absorption properties

Band Structure and Optical Absorption Properties of Polysilane Chains... 

In addition to photoconductivity, polysilanes have been found to exhibit marked nonlinear optical properties,95-97 suggesting that they may eventually be useful in laser and other optical technology. The third-order non-linear susceptibility, X3, is a measure of the strength of this effect. The non-linear properties of polysilanes, like the absorption spectra, seem to be dependent on chain conformation and are enhanced for polymers having an extended, near anti conformation (Table 5.5). The value of 11 x 10 12 esu observed for (n-Hex2Si) below its transition temperature is the largest ever observed for a polymer which is transparent in the visible region. 

The conformational mobility of a chromophoric main-chain polymer is often connected to its electronic structure. Therefore, changes in the UV-visible absorption spectra and/or chiroptical properties are spectroscopically observable as thermo-, solvato-, piezo-, or electrochromisms. It is widely reported that o-conjugating polysilanes exhibit these phenomena remarkably clearly.34 However, their structural origins were controversial until recently, since limited information was available on the correlation between the conformational properties of the main chain, electronic state, and (chir)optical characteristics. In 1996, we reported that in various polysilanes in tetrahydrofuran (THF) at 30°C, the main-chain peak intensity per silicon repeat unit, e (Si repeat unit)-1 dm3 cm-1, increases exponentially as the viscosity index, a, increases.41 Although conventional viscometric measurements often requires a wide range of low-dispersity molecular-weight polymer samples, a size exclusion chromatography (SEC) machine equipped with a viscometric detector can afford... 

Polysilanes have unique optical, electronic and photophysical properties due to the delocalization of the a-electrons along the silicon chain (see above). This delocalization was first discovered while studying the absorption spectra of oligo- and polysilanes. Polysilanes show distinctly red shifted absorption bands compared to the homologous series of polyolefins. Furthermore, the absorption bands depend... 

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