Kinetics of singlet fission in organic semiconductors: Specific features of T-exciton migration effects

Oriented Triplet Excitons as Long-Lived Electron Spin Qutrits in a Molecular Donor-Acceptor Single Cocrystal

The photogeneration of multiple unpaired electron spins within molecules is a promising route to applications in quantum information science because they can be initialized into well-defined, multilevel quantum states (S > 1/2) and reproducibly fabricated by chemical synthesis. However, coherent manipulation of these spin states is difficult to realize in typical molecular systems due to the lack of selective addressability and short coherence times of the spin transitions. Here, these challenges are addressed by using donor-acceptor single cocrystals composed of pyrene and naphthalene dianhydride to host spatially oriented triplet excitons, which exhibit promising photogenerated qutrit properties. Time-resolved electron paramagnetic resonance (TREPR) spectroscopy demonstrates that spatially orienting triplet excitons in a single crystal platform imparts narrow, well-resolved, tunable resonances in the triplet EPR spectrum, allowing selective addressability of the spin sublevel transitions. Pulse-EPR spectroscopy reveals that at temperatures above 30 K, spin decoherence of these triplet excitons is driven by exciton diffusion. However, coherence is limited by electronic spin dipolar coupling below 30 K, where T2 varies nonlinearly with the optical excitation density due to exciton annihilation. Overall, an optimized coherence time of T2 = 7.1 μs at 20 K is achieved. These results provide important insights into designing solid-state molecular excitonic materials with improved spin qutrit properties.

Structure Dependence of Kinetic and Thermodynamic Parameters in Singlet Fission Processes

Singlet fission-whereby one absorbed photon generates two coupled triplet excitons-is a key process for increasing the efficiency of optoelectronic devices by overcoming the Shockley-Queisser limit. A crucial parameter is the rate of dissociation of the coupled triplets, as this limits the number of free triplets subsequently available for harvesting and ultimately the overall efficiency of the device. Here we present an analysis of the thermodynamic and kinetic parameters for this process in parallel and herringbone dimers measured by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy in coevaporated films of pentacene in p-terphenyl. The rate of dissociation is higher for parallel dimers than for their herringbone counterparts, as is the rate of recombination to the ground state. DFT calculations, which provide the magnitude of the electronic coupling as well as the distribution of molecular orbitals for each geometry, suggest that weaker triplet coupling in the parallel dimer is the driving force for faster dissociation. Conversely, localization of the molecular orbitals and a stronger triplet-triplet interaction result in slower dissociation and recombination. The identification and understanding of how the intermolecular geometry promotes efficient triplet dissociation provide the basis for control of triplet coupling and thereby the optimization of one important parameter of device performance.

Manifestation of specific features of T-exciton migration in magnetic field effects on TT-annihilation in molecular crystals: Analysis of low-field resonances

The manifestation of specific features of T-exciton migration in the shape of low field resonances (LFRs) in the magnetic field effects on the TT-annihilation in molecular crystals is studied in detail. The LFRs are shown to be caused by avoided crossing of spin-levels of T-excitons in magnetic fields nearly parallel to the axis of the zero field splitting interaction tensor. Simple and accurate formulas for the shape of the LFR-line are derived within the hopping model of T-exciton migration. With these formulas, we demonstrate that the LFR-line shape is fairly sensitive to the anisotropy of T-exciton migration, in particular, in quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1D) and quasi-two-dimensional (quasi-2D) limits of exciton migration. The analysis of the shape is shown to allow for obtaining the magnitude of the small rate of jumps out of 1D and 2D spaces of fast migration in the cases quasi-1D and quasi-2D migration, respectively. In addition, this analysis enables one to obtain the spin relaxation rate of T-excitons.