Optical Properties of Neutral and Charged Low Band Gap Alternating Copolyfluorenes: TD-DFT Investigation

Abstract

Electronic structure and optical properties of neutral and charged low band gap alternating copolyfluorenes (Green 1, which is based on alternating repeating units consisting of alkyl-substituted fluorene and a thiophene-[1,2,5]thiadiazolo-[3,4]quinoxaline-thiophene (T-TDQ-T) unit were investigated theoretically with time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) method, and their excited state properties were further analyzed with 2D site and 3D cube representations. For neutral Green 1, the band gap, binding energy, exciton binding energy, and nuclear relaxation energy were obtained. The transition dipole moments of neutral and charged Green 1 are compared using 3D transition density, which reveals the orientation and strength of transition dipole moments. The charge redistribution of neutral and charged Green 1 upon excitation are displayed and compared with 3D charge difference density. The electron-hole coherences of neutral and charged Green 1 upon excitation are investigated with 2D site representation (transition density matrix). The excited state properties of neutral Green 1 calculated with TD-DFT method are compared with that calculated with ZINDO method, which reveals the importance of electron-electron interaction (in TD-DFT) in the excited state properties.