Prof Laura Herz FRS

Abstract:

We present time-resolved photoluminescence measurements on two series of oligo-p-phenylenevinylene materials that self-assemble into supramolecular nanostructures with thermotropic reversibility in dodecane. One set of derivatives form chiral helical stacks, while the second set form less organized "frustrated" stacks. Here we study the effects of supramolecular organization on the resonance energy transfer rates. We measure these rates in nanoassemblies formed with mixed blends of oligomers and compare them with the rates predicted by Forster theory. Our results and analysis show that control of supramolecular order in the nanometer length scale has a dominant effect on the efficiency and dimensionality of resonance energy transfer.

Abstract:

We have investigated the influence of nuclear geometric relaxation on the extent of the excited-state electronic delocalization in conjugated zinc porphyrin oligomers using ultrafast transient photoluminescence spectroscopy. By use of metal-coordinating templates that force the oligomers into specific geometries in solution we are able to distinguish clearly between relaxation effects arising from the two vibrational modes that preferentially couple to the electronic transitions in such materials, i.e., carbon-carbon bond stretches and inter-ring torsions. We find that light absorption generates an excited state that is initially strongly delocalized along the oligomer but contracts rapidly following vibrational relaxation of the nuclei along C-C stretch coordinates on the subpicosecond time scale. We are able to monitor such excitonic self-trapping effects by observing the extent to which the concomitant ultrafast rotation of the transition dipole moment is found to correlate with the degree of bending induced in the molecular backbone. We further demonstrate that interporphyrin torsional relaxation leads to a subsequent increase in the excited-state electronic delocalization on a longer time scale (approximately 100 ps). Such dynamic planarization of the molecular backbone is evident from the time-dependent increase in the overall emission intensity and red-shift in the peak emission energy that can be observed for wormlike flexible porphyrin octamers but not for torsionally rigidified cyclic or double-strand octamer complexes. These results therefore indicate that, following excitation, the initially highly delocalized excited-state wave function first contracts and then expands again along the conjugated backbone in accordance with the time periods for the vibrational modes coupled to the electronic transition.

Abstract:

Time-integrated and femtosecond time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy has been used to study the dynamic emission polarization anisotropy for thin films of a conjugated polymer whose chains had been aligned through a nanoimprinting technique. The results indicate a high degree of chain alignment, with the presence of a small fraction of unaligned chain domains in film regions far from the imprinted surface. The time-averaged emission from aligned domains is found to be slightly shifted to higher photon energies compared to that from more disordered film regions. This effect is attributed to a subtly different chain packing geometry in the more aligned regions of the film, which leads to a reduced exciton diffusivity and inhibits energetic relaxation of the exciton in the inhomogeneously broadened density of states. While for an unaligned reference film, exciton migration results in a nearly complete depolarization of the emission over the first 300 ps, for the aligned films, interchain exciton hopping from unaligned to aligned domains is found to increase the anisotropy over the same time scale. In addition, excitons generated in aligned film domains were found to be slightly more susceptible to nonradiative quenching effects than those in disordered regions deeper inside the film, suggesting a marginally higher defect density near the nanoimprinted surface of the aligned film. © 2008 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

We have used terahertz time-domain spectroscopy to investigate photoinduced charge generation in conjugated polymer field-effect transistors. Our measurements show that excitons dissociate in the accumulation layer under the application of a gate voltage, with a quantum efficiency of ∼0.1 for an average gate field of ∼1× 108 V m-1. The transistor history is found to affect the exciton dissociation efficiency, which decreases as holes are increasingly trapped in the accumulation layer. The quantum efficiency of charge formation from excitons is compared with the two contrasting models proposed by Onsager and Arkhipov based on the assumption that field-induced exciton dissociation is assisted by the Brownian diffusive motion or an initial excess energy supplied by excited vibrational modes, respectively. © 2008 The American Physical Society.