Ultrafast photoinduced charge transfer in pi-conjugated electron systems: Effects of structure, delocalization, and energetics (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Photoinduced charge transfer is a key step in the mechanism of charge generation in organic solar cells. Charge transfer typically occurs from a photoexcited conjugated polymer donor to an electron acceptor. In an effort to better understand the primary events in solar cells, we have investigated photoinduced charge transfer in model donor-acceptor systems consisting of pi-conjugated oligomer donors that are covalently linked to diimide electron acceptors. These studies utilized oligo(thiophene), oligo(phenylene ethynylene) and oligo(fluorene) pi-conjugated systems with lengths varying from 4 to 12 repeat units linked to naphthalene diimide electron acceptors. Excitation with 100 femtosecond pulses at wavelengths correspoinding to the conjugated oligomer absorption band(s) leads to rapid photoinduced charge transfer to produce a charge separated state, (oligomer+)-(NDI-), which subsequently decays on timescales ranging from 100 ps to 5 ns. The dynamics of the forward and reverse electron transfer reactions depend strongly on the structure and length of the pi-conjugated oligomers, with the fastest rates occurring for oligo(thiophene)s, and considerably slower rates for oligo(phenylene ethynylene)s. The talk will discuss the structure-property relationships and energetic correlations that control the dynamics of charge separation and recombination.