Excimer Formation in Zinc-phthalocyanine Revealed using Ultrafast Electron Diffraction

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hammer, Sebastian, Britt, Tristan L., Kremeyer, Laurenz, Rödel, Maximilian, Cai, David, Pflaum, Jens, Siwick, Bradley
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Hammer, Sebastian
Britt, Tristan L.
Kremeyer, Laurenz
Rödel, Maximilian
Cai, David
Pflaum, Jens
Siwick, Bradley
author_facet Hammer, Sebastian
Britt, Tristan L.
Kremeyer, Laurenz
Rödel, Maximilian
Cai, David
Pflaum, Jens
Siwick, Bradley
contents The formation of excited dimer states, so called excimers, is an important phenomenon in many organic molecular semiconductors. In contrast to Frenkel exciton-polaron excited states, an excimer is long-lived and energetically low-lying due to stabilization resulting from a substantial reorganization of the inter-molecular geometry. In this letter, we show that ultrafast electron diffraction can follow the dynamics of solid-state excimer formation in polycrystalline thin films of a molecular semiconductor, revealing both the key reaction modes and the eventual structure of the emitting state. We study the prototypical organic semiconductor zinc-phthalocyanine (ZnPc) in its crystallographic $α$-phase as a model excimeric system. We show, that the excimer forms in a two-step process starting with a fast dimerization ($\lesssim 0.4\, \text{ps}$) followed by a subsequent slow shear-twist motion ($14\, \text{ps}$) leading to an alignment of the $π$-systems of the involved monomers. Furthermore, we show that while the same excimer geomtry is present in partially fluorinated derivatives of ZnPc, the formation kinematics slow down with increasing level of fluorination.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_18292
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Excimer Formation in Zinc-phthalocyanine Revealed using Ultrafast Electron Diffraction
Hammer, Sebastian
Britt, Tristan L.
Kremeyer, Laurenz
Rödel, Maximilian
Cai, David
Pflaum, Jens
Siwick, Bradley
Chemical Physics
The formation of excited dimer states, so called excimers, is an important phenomenon in many organic molecular semiconductors. In contrast to Frenkel exciton-polaron excited states, an excimer is long-lived and energetically low-lying due to stabilization resulting from a substantial reorganization of the inter-molecular geometry. In this letter, we show that ultrafast electron diffraction can follow the dynamics of solid-state excimer formation in polycrystalline thin films of a molecular semiconductor, revealing both the key reaction modes and the eventual structure of the emitting state. We study the prototypical organic semiconductor zinc-phthalocyanine (ZnPc) in its crystallographic $α$-phase as a model excimeric system. We show, that the excimer forms in a two-step process starting with a fast dimerization ($\lesssim 0.4\, \text{ps}$) followed by a subsequent slow shear-twist motion ($14\, \text{ps}$) leading to an alignment of the $π$-systems of the involved monomers. Furthermore, we show that while the same excimer geomtry is present in partially fluorinated derivatives of ZnPc, the formation kinematics slow down with increasing level of fluorination.
title Excimer Formation in Zinc-phthalocyanine Revealed using Ultrafast Electron Diffraction
topic Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.18292