No Arabic abstract
We theoretically study the temperature dependence of the J-band width in disordered linear molecular aggregates, caused by dephasing of the exciton states due to scattering on vibrations of the host matrix. In particular, we consider inelastic one- and two-phonon scattering between different exciton states (energy-relaxation-induced dephasing), as well as elastic two-phonon scattering of the excitons (pure dephasing). The exciton states follow from numerical diagonalization of a Frenkel Hamiltonian with diagonal disorder; the scattering rates between them are obtained using the Fermi Golden Rule. A Debye-like model for the one- and two-phonon spectral densities is used in the calculations. We find that, owing to the disorder, the dephasing rates of the individual exciton states are distributed over a wide range of values. We also demonstrate that the dominant channel of two-phonon scattering is not the elastic one, as is often tacitly assumed, but rather comes from a similar two-phonon inelastic scattering process. In order to study the temperature dependence of the J-band width, we simulate the absorption spectrum, accounting for the dephasing induced broadening of the exciton states. We find a power-law (T^p) temperature scaling of the effective homogeneous width, with an exponent p that depends on the shape of the spectral density of host vibrations. In particular, for a Debye model of vibrations, we find p ~ 4, which is in good agreement with experimental data on J-aggregates of pseudoisocyanine [J. Phys. Chem. A 101, 7977 (1997)].
We show that the third-order optical response of disordered linear J-aggregates can be calculated by considering only a limited number of transitions between (multi-) exciton states. We calculate the pump-probe absorption spectrum resulting from the truncated set of transitions and show that, apart from the blue wing of the induced absorption peak, it agrees well with the exact spectrum.
We study the excitonic coupling and homogeneous spectral line width of brick layer J-aggregate films. We begin by analysing the structural information revealed by the two-exciton states probed in two-dimensional spectra. Our first main result is that the relation between the excitonic couplings and the spectral shift in a two-dimensional structure is different (larger shift for the same nearest neighbour coupling) from that in a one-dimensional structure, which leads to an estimation of dipolar coupling in two-dimensional lattices. We next investigate the mechanisms of homogeneous broadening - population relaxation and pure dephasing - and evaluate their relative importance in linear and two-dimensional aggregates. Our second main result is that pure dephasing dominates the line width in two-dimensional systems up to a crossover temperature, which explains the linear temperature dependence of the homogeneous line width. This is directly related to the decreased density of states at the band edge when compared with linear aggregates, thus reducing the contribution of population relaxation to dephasing. Pump-probe experiments are suggested to directly measure the lifetime of the bright state and can therefore support the proposed model.
Coherent dynamics of coupled molecules are effectively characterized by the two-dimensional (2D) electronic coherent spectroscopy. Depending on the coupling between electronic and vibrational states, oscillating signals of purely electronic, purely vibrational or mixed origin can be observed. Even in the mixed molecular systems two types of coherent beats having either electronic or vibrational character can be distinguished by analyzing oscillation Fourier maps, constructed from time-resolved 2D spectra. The amplitude of the beatings with the electronic character is heavily affected by the energetic disorder and consequently electronic coherences are quickly dephased. Beatings with the vibrational character depend weakly on the disorder, assuring their long-time survival. We show that detailed modeling of 2D spectroscopy signals of molecular aggregates providesdirect information on the origin of the coherent beatings.
We predict the existence of exchange broadening of optical lineshapes in disordered molecular aggregates and a nonuniversal disorder scaling of the localization characteristics of the collective electronic excitations (excitons). These phenomena occur for heavy-tailed Levy disorder distributions with divergent second moments - distributions that play a role in many branches of physics. Our results sharply contrast with aggregate models commonly analyzed, where the second moment is finite. They bear a relevance for other types of collective excitations as well.
The physics of disordered alloys, such as typically the well known case of CeNi1-xCux alloys, showing an interplay among the Kondo effect, the spin glass state and a magnetic order, has been studied firstly within an average description like in the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model. Recently, a theoretical model (PRB 74, 014427 (2006)) involving a more local description of the intersite interaction has been proposed to describe the phase diagram of CeNi1-xCux. This alloy is an example of the complex interplay between Kondo effect and frustration in which there is in particular the onset of a cluster-glass state. Although the model given in Ref. PRB 74, 014427 (2006) has reproduced the different phases relatively well, it is not able to describe the cluster-glass state. We study here the competition between the Kondo effect and a cluster glass phase within a Kondo Lattice model with an inter-cluster random Gaussian interaction. The inter-cluster term is treated within the cluster mean-field theory for spin glasses, while, inside the cluster, an exact diagonalisation is performed including inter-site ferromagnetic and intra-site Kondo interactions. The cluster glass order parameters and the Kondo correlation function are obtained for different values of the cluster size, the intra-cluster ferromagnetic coupling and the Kondo intra-site coupling. We obtain, for instance, that the increase of the Kondo coupling tends to destroy the cluster glass phase.