Interplay of intermolecular and intramolecular vibrations mediates ultrafast singlet fission

Abstract

Singlet fission (SF) is an exciton multiplication process that splits a singlet exciton in organic semiconductors into two triplet excitons and thus, can overcome the Shockley–Queisser limit to improve the solar energy conversion efficiency in photovoltaics. In this paper, we construct a unified model for the ultrafast primary step of the SF process. To achieve this, we investigate the dynamics of vibrational modes and their interactions with the relevant electronic excited states in prototypical SF materials, pentacene (exothermic SF) and tetracene (endothermic SF) single crystals. Additionally, the functional role of the charge transfer (CT) state is also examined. Using the refined parameters obtained from the reported experimental results, we deduce that the intermolecular vibrations mediate the SF in pentacene with the assistance from strong vibronic couplings to intramolecular modes, which drives the SF process to occur within 100 fs. In this timescale, the CT state has a limiting role towards the SF process in pentacene. However, the CT state plays an important role in a relatively slower SF process in tetracene. Our results disentangle the role of underlying vibrational coherences and clarify the importance of the CT state in tetracene crystal. Hence, with our unified model, we can study the coherent dynamics of the SF process, which can principally be extended to other SF materials as well.