Optical Projection and Spatial Separation of Spin Entangled Triplet-Pairs from the S1 (21Ag-) State of Pi-Conjugated Systems
Raj Pandya a, Akshay Rao a
a Optoelectronics Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK., J.J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MATSUS)
Proceedings of nanoGe Fall Meeting19 (NFM19)
#Exciup19. Excitonic up-downconversion
Berlin, Germany, 2019 November 3rd - 8th
Oral, Raj Pandya, presentation 168
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2019.168
Publication date: 18th July 2019

The S1 (21Ag-) state is an optically dark state of natural and synthetic pi-conjugated materials that can play a critical role in optoelectronic processes such as, energy harvesting, photoprotection and singlet fission [1,2]. Despite this widespread importance, direct experimental characterisations of the electronic structure of the S1 (21Ag-) wave function have remained scarce and uncertain, although advanced theory predicts it to have a rich multi-excitonic character [3]. Here, studying an archetypal polymer, polydiacetylene, and carotenoids, we experimentally demonstrate that S1 (21Ag-) is a superposition state with strong contributions from spin-entangled pairs of triplet excitons (1(TT)). We further show that optical manipulation of the S1 (21Ag-) wave function using triplet absorption transitions allows selective projection of the 1(TT) component into a manifold of spatially separated triplet-pairs with lifetimes enhanced by up to one order of magnitude and whose yield is strongly dependent on the level of inter-chromophore coupling. Our results provide a unified picture of 21Ag- states in pi-conjugated materials and open new routes to exploit their dynamics in singlet fission, photobiology and for the generation of entangled (spin-1) particles for molecular quantum technologies [4].

 

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