The energy gap law established for aromatic hydrocarbons and rare earth ions relates the nonradiative decay rate to the energy gap of a transition through a multiphonon emission process. We show that this energy gap law can be applied to the phosphoresce of a series of conjugated polymers and monomers for which the radiative decay rate has been enhanced through incorporation of a heavy metal. We find that the nonradiative decay rate from the triplet state T(1) increases exponentially with decreasing T(1)-S(0) gap for the polymers and monomers at 300 and 20 K. Comparison of the nonradiative decay of polymers with that of their corresponding monomers highlights the role of electron-lattice coupling.

The efficiency of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) made from organic semiconductors is determined by the fraction of injected electrons and holes that recombine to form emissive spin-singlet states rather than non-emissive spin-triplet states. If the process by which these states form is spin-independent, the maximum efficiency of organic LEDs will be limited to 25 per cent. But recent reports have indicated fractions of emissive singlet states ranging from 22 to 63 per cent, and the reason for this variation remains unclear. Here we determine the absolute fraction of singlet states generated in a platinum-containing conjugated polymer and its corresponding monomer. The spin-orbit coupling introduced by the platinum atom allows triplet-state emission, so optically and electrically generated luminescence from both singlet and triplet states can be compared directly. We find an average singlet generation fraction of 22 +/- 1 per cent for the monomer, but 57 +/- 4 per cent for the polymer. This suggests that recombination is spin-independent for the monomer, but that a spin-dependent process, favouring singlet formation, is effective in the polymer. We suggest that this process is a consequence of the exchange interaction, which will operate on overlapping electron and hole wavefunctions on the same polymer chain at their capture radius.

Following the recent discovery of large magnetoresistance at room temperature in polyfluorence sandwich devices, we have performed a comprehensive magnetoresistance study on a set of organic semiconductor sandwich devices made from different pi-conjugated polymers and small molecules. The measurements were performed at different temperatures, ranging from 10K to 300K, and at magnetic fields, B < 100mT . We observed large negative or positive magnetoresistance (up to 10% at 300K and 10mT) depending on material and device operating conditions. We compare the results obtained in devices made from different materials with the goal of providing a comprehensive picture of the experimental data. We discuss our results in the framework of known magnetoresistance mechanisms and find that none of the existing models can explain our results.

The photophysical behavior of 3-chloro-7-methoxy-4-methylcoumarin related to the energy separation of the two lowest-lying singlet excited states Soluble, rigid-rod organometallic polymers trans-͓-Pt(PBu 3 n ) 2 -CwC-R-CwC-͔ ϱ ͑Rvbithienyl 2, terthienyl 3͒ have been synthesized in good yields by the CuI-catalyzed dehydrohalogenation reaction of trans-͓Pt(PBu 3 n ) 2 Cl 2 ͔ with one equivalent of the diterminal alkynyl oligothiophenes H-CwC-R-CwC-H in CH 2 Cl 2 / i Pr 2 NH at room temperature. We report the thermal properties, and the optical absorption, photoluminescence, and photocurrent action spectra of 1 ͑trans-͓ -Pt(PBu 3 n ) 2 -CwC-R-CwC-͔ ϱ , Rvthienyl͒, 2 and 3 as a function of the number of thiophene rings within the bridging ligand. With increasing thiophene content, the optical gap is reduced and the vibronic structure of the singlet emission changes toward that typical for oligothiophenes. We also find the intersystem crossing from the singlet excited state to the triplet excited state to become reduced, while the singlet-triplet energy gap remains unaltered. The latter implies that, in these systems, the T 1 triplet excited state is extended over several thiophene rings. The photoconducting properties do not depend on the size of the thiophene fragment. We discuss and compare our results with studies on oligothiophenes and related organometallic polymers.

Evolution of lowest singlet and triplet excited states with number of thienyl rings in platinum poly-ynesWe present a joint experimental and theoretical investigation of the electronic excitations in transition metal-containing phenylene ethynylenes. The influence of the metal on the nature of the lowest singlet and triplet excited states is characterized. We find that conjugation occurs through the metal sites, which deeply modifies the optical properties of the conjugated chains. We also analyze the chain-length dependence of the singlet-singlet, S 0 →S 1 , singlet-triplet, S 0 →T 1 , and triplet-triplet, T 1 →T n , transition energies; both experimental data and theoretical results indicate that the lowest triplet exciton, T 1 , is strongly localized on a single phenylene ring while the S 1 and T n states extend over a few repeating units. Finally, we estimate the geometric relaxation phenomena occurring in the lowest excited states and perform a Huang-Rhys analysis of the triplet emission spectrum in model systems.