Conjugated polymers offer potential for many diverse applications but we still lack a fundamental microscopic understanding of their electronic structure. Elementary photoexcitations - excitons - span only a few nanometres of a molecule, which itself
can extend over microns, and how their behaviour is affected by molecular dimensions is not fully understood. For example, where is the exciton formed within a conjugated segment, is it always situated on the same repeat units? Here, we introduce structurally-rigid molecular spoked wheels, 6 nanometres in diameter, as a model of extended pi-conjugation. Single-molecule fluorescence reveals random exciton localisation, leading to temporally-varying emission polarisation. Initially, this random localisation arises after every photon absorption event because of temperature independent spontaneous symmetry breaking. These fast fluctuations are slowed to millisecond timescales following prolonged illumination. Intramolecular heterogeneity is revealed in cryogenic spectroscopy by jumps in transition energy, however, emission polarisation can also switch without a spectral jump occurring, implying long-range homogeneity in local dielectric environment.
Inter- or intramolecular coupling processes between chromophores such as excimer formation or H- and J-aggregation are crucial to describing the photophysics of closely packed films of conjugated polymers. Such coupling is highly distance dependent,
and should be sensitive to both fluctuations in the spacing between chromophores as well as the actual position on the chromophore where the exciton localizes. Single-molecule spectroscopy reveals these intrinsic fluctuations in well-defined bi-chromophoric model systems of cofacial oligomers. Signatures of interchromophoric interactions in the excited state - spectral red-shifting and broadening, and a slowing of photoluminescence decay - correlate with each other but scatter strongly between single molecules, implying an extraordinary distribution in coupling strengths. Furthermore, these excimer-like spectral fingerprints vary with time, revealing intrinsic dynamics in the coupling strength within one single dimer molecule, which constitutes the starting point for describing a molecular solid. Such spectral sensitivity to sub-Angstrom molecular dynamics could prove complementary to conventional FRET-based molecular rulers.
The spectral breadth of conjugated polymers gives these materials a clear advantage over other molecular compounds for organic photovoltaic applications and is a key factor in recent efficiencies topping 10%. But why do excitonic transitions, which a
re inherently narrow, lead to absorption over such a broad range of wavelengths in the first place? Using single-molecule spectroscopy, we address this fundamental question in a model material, poly(3-hexylthiophene). Narrow zero-phonon lines from single chromophores are found to scatter over 200nm, an unprecedented inhomogeneous broadening which maps the ensemble. The giant red-shift between solution and bulk films arises from energy transfer to the lowest-energy chromophores in collapsed polymer chains which adopt a highly-ordered morphology. We propose that the extreme energetic disorder of chromophores is structural in origin. This structural disorder on the single-chromophore level may actually enable the high degree of polymer chain ordering found in bulk films: both structural order and disorder are crucial to materials physics in devices.
The efficiency of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) depends on the microscopic orientation of transition dipole moments of the molecular emitters. The most effective materials used for light generation have threefold symmetry, which prohibit a p
riori determination of dipole orientation due to the degeneracy of the fundamental transition. Single-molecule spectroscopy reveals that the model triplet emitter tris(2-phenylisoquinoline)iridium(III) (Ir(piq)3) does not behave as a linear dipole, radiating with lower polarization anisotropy than expected. Spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs in the excited state, leading to a random selection of one of the three ligands to form a charge transfer state with the metal. This non-deterministic localization is revealed in switching of the degree of linear polarization of phosphorescence. Polarization scrambling likely raises out-coupling efficiency and should be taken into account when deriving molecular orientation of the guest emitter within the OLED host from ensemble angular emission profiles.
Control of chain length and morphology in combination with single-molecule spectroscopy techniques provide a comprehensive photophysical picture of excited-state losses in the prototypical conjugated polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT). A universal
self-quenching mechanism is revealed, based on singlet-triplet exciton annihilation, which accounts for the dramatic loss in fluorescence quantum yield of a single P3HT chain between its solution (unfolded) and bulk-like (folded) state. Triplet excitons fundamentally limit the fluorescence of organic photovoltaic materials, which impacts on the conversion of singlet excitons to separated charge carriers, decreasing the efficiency of energy harvesting at high excitation densities. Interexcitonic interactions are so effective that a single P3HT chain of >100 kDa weight behaves like a two-level system, exhibiting perfect photon-antibunching.
