The influence of the vinyl terminal group on the poly(para-phenylenevinylene) charge transfer integrals.

The charge transport properties of organic semiconductors are one of the foremost limiting factors in technological applications of these materials, which are becoming important competitors with respect to the inorganic semiconductors. In fact, conjugated organic molecules are used at present as active materials in different types of devices. For this reason, the theoretical study of the electron and hole mobility, carried out in order to give hints for the design of new molecules or for the optimization of their supramolecular organization, is a task of great interest. Here, we present the results of a quantum chemical study, in the framework of the Marcus and density functional theories, on the effects of terminal groups (when they directly interact with the pi-conjugated system of the organic semiconductors) on the charge carriers mobility of organic semiconductors. In particular, using a representative oligomer of poly(para-phenylenevinylene) as a model system, we have found that strong effects on the predicted values of the intramolecular transfer integrals as well as on their dependence on the supramolecular organizations occur, when the vinyl moiety (as ending group) is taken into account.

Tuning the photophysical properties of pyrene-based systems: a theoretical study.

Recently new molecular systems based on the pyrene moiety were developed for photovoltaic applications. Here we present the results of a quantum chemical study focused on the effects induced by some different substituents on the electronic properties of pyrene, to obtain general hints for the molecular design of new pyrene-based systems. In particular, a series of electron-donating (hydroxy, amino, acetylamino) and electron-withdrawing (cyano, carbamoyl, formyl, ethynyl, ethenyl) groups were considered. Furthermore, in addition to the single pyrene molecule, two pyrene units linked by ethenylene, ethynylene, 2,5-thienylene, and ethynylene-p-phenylene containing chains of different lengths were taken into account. For all of the model structures presented, the ground state geometries have been optimized using the density functional approach, while the vertical transition energies were calculated using the time-dependent density functional theory. We will show that the tuning of the lowest electronic excitation energy (i.e., the HOMO-LUMO energy gap) as well as the localization of the spatial distributions of the frontier molecular orbitals (i.e., the nature of the electron-hole pair, generated by photon absorption) can be obtained through the analysis of the pyrene frontier molecular orbitals. This approach allows to evaluate the most suitable position of the substituents on the pyrene moiety giving rise to enhanced electronic effects also in function of their electronic nature. In this way, pyrene-structures with tailored electronic properties could be modeled. Our screening shows that promising candidates for photovoltaic applications could be molecular structures formed by two pyrene units joined/linked by a short conjugated bridge containing double or triple bonds (henceforth pyrene-linked dimers). As far as the single pyrene units are considered, the most significant reduction of the transition energy of the lowest optical electronic excitation is obtained with disubstituted pyrenes with push-pull character.

Spectroscopical properties of organic/metal nanohybrids.

The aim of our work was to prepare stable nanohybrids of controlled size and shape consisting of a noble metal core decorated with polydiacetylenes (PDAs). Due to the combination of the outstanding linear and nonlinear optical properties of the polydiacetylenic chains with the electromagnetic field-enhancing capability of metal nanostructures, these novel composites can find potential application in different fields. In particular, the different colours exhibited by PDAs in relation to the chemical nature of the monomer and the polymerization procedure, as well as in response to environmental perturbations, make them excellent materials for the fabrication of sensing devices. On the basis of our previous work on PDA self-assembled monolayers on flat metal surfaces, the results of which are briefly reported, we prepared differently-shaped gold and silver nanocores (spheres, cages) coated with various diacetylenic monomers having end-groups able to firmly anchor to the metal surface. These nanohybrids exhibit in aqueous colloidal solution an enhanced photochemical polymerization monitored step by step with UV-Vis and SERS techniques. It is shown that in these stable assemblies an intra-particle polymerization takes place and that the dominant PDA form is conditioned by the core size and geometry. While the nanoparticles are SERS active in the visible, the nanocages should be excellent SERS substrates from the visible to the near infrared regions.

Evolution of the bipolaronic structure in going from one- to two-dimensional pi model systems.

Long neutral and doubly charged oligodiacetylenes (with a maximum of 30 repeat units) as well as some of their aggregates have been studied in a semiempirical framework. By analyzing the plots of the one-electron ground-state density matrices, we have shown that the 12-units long oligomer is the borderline between two different behaviors of the electronic structure of the isolated charged systems. For oligomers shorter than this limit the bipolaronic structure is the dominant one, while for larger oligomers the polaron-pair structure is preferred. The major conclusion of this work concerns the effects of the interchain interactions in bipolaron systems, which are usually neglected in theoretical works. It is predicted that as a consequence of the latter in the bulk system a bipolaron generated on a single polymer chain will soon split into two polarons on adjacent chains.

Environment effects on the CO vibrational shifts in erbium complexes: a quantum chemical study.

The stability of lanthanide complexes and the efficiency of the energy transfer process, which makes these molecules interesting materials for technological applications, are correlated to the chemical environment surrounding the metal ion. In particular the efficiency depends on the relative position of the antenna (the ligand moiety that acts as photon absorption center) and the lanthanide ion (the emitting center), while the stability of the complex is correlated to the strength of the coordination between the rare earth and the ligands. For these reasons, knowledge of the structural properties of the complex is an interesting task to achieve. Since a large number of ligand structures hold the carboxylate group (COO(-)), which is used as an anchor for binding the antennae to the lanthanide ion, in this work we will show how the vibrational shifts of this group, induced by the interactions between the carboxylate moiety and the metal center of the lanthanide complex, can be used for obtaining in a simple way information on the structure of the chemical environment surrounding the lanthanide ion.

Influence of interchain interactions on the electronic properties of neutral and charged oligodiacetylenes carrying bulk substituents.

We discuss the effect of the interchain interactions on the electronic properties of a "dimer", named (CHD(4))(2), built from two molecules of a fully carbazolyl-substituted oligodiacetylene containing four repeating units. Each carbazolyl moiety is connected to its respective backbone through a methylene spacer, and the excitations of the neutral and doubly positively charged dimer are obtained using the CIS (configuration interaction including singles) and CEO (collective electronic oscillator) models. The separation distance between the backbones is fixed to a value that could possibly imply a very weak, if any, interchain interaction between the oligomers. In the charged dimer, where we have not been able to perform CEO calculations, it can be expected from previous results that the CIS method will behave satisfactorily. Contrary to the neutral case and surprisingly enough, the simulated photoinduced absorption (PA) spectra indicate a substituent-induced strong interaction between the oligomers, due to the very large amount of excess charge on the distorted oligomer which is spread over its carbazolyl moieties. Broadening of the lowest energy band due to the latter interaction improves the agreement between the theoretical and the experimental PA spectrum for the corresponding polymer. The through-space charge transfer directly connecting the charged with the neutral molecule could supply an efficient channel for charge transport in substituted polydiacetylenes.

Semiempirical study of the electronic and optical properties of the Er(8-hydroxyquinolinate)3 complex.

We use a simple quantum chemical semiempirical procedure to study the electronic properties of organic-lanthanide complexes, taking as a model system Er(8-hydroxyquinolinate)3. Among the problems inherent to such a study is the fact that the lanthanide ion has never been parametrized in any of the standard semiempirical Hamiltonians. To overcome this difficulty, the lanthanide ion is replaced by a different but somewhat similar parametrized ion, or merely by a point charge. Good agreement with experiment, where available, is obtained, particularly in the former case. In fact, the electronic properties of the complex (apart from the emission properties) are seen to be scarcely affected by the nature of the lanthanide ion itself, but the core interactions between the metal ion and the ligand units play a relevant role, also in the calculation of the excitation energies. In particular, the ordering and separation of both singlet and triplet excited states are affected. The main conclusion is that to describe in detail the mechanism of the energy-transfer process occurring in the complex it is essential to take into account the geometry relaxation effects in the excited states.

Photopolymerization of diacetylene-capped gold nanoparticles.

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) coated with the diacetylene henicosa-10,12-diyn-1-yl (DS9) disulfide were successfully prepared by direct synthesis in toluene solutions. The average size of the nanohybrid metal core was finely adjusted by manipulation of the preparative conditions in the diameter range from 1.6 to 7.5 nm, as determined by TEM characterization. The topochemical polymerization of DS9 chemisorbed onto the gold nanoclusters of different size was carried out in colloidal suspensions by exposure to UV radiation and the process was monitored by UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopies. The results showed that in these assemblies the monomer undergoes an intra-particle polymerization and that the dominant polydiacetylene phase present is ruled by the core size. The deposition of the photoirradiated colloids onto different substrates was found to leave the polydiacetylene conjugation unaltered.

UV polymerization of self-assembled monolayers of a novel diacetylene on silver: a spectroscopic analysis by surface plasmon resonance and surface enhanced Raman scattering.

UV polymerization of self-assembled monolayers of a novel carbazolyl-diacetylene (CDS9) chemisorbed on silver films was demonstrated by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) experiments. SPR tests performed during UV exposure permitted one to observe the growth of the absorption coefficient, associated with the formation of the polymeric backbone. The Raman spectra of polymerized monolayers exhibited the bands associated with the C=C stretching modes of the conjugated backbone, typical of the blue and red polymeric phases usually present in polydiacetylenes, with a clear predominance of the red form. Moreover, the strong surface enhancement of the Raman band corresponding to the aromatic C=C stretching modes suggested that carbazolyl groups arrange nearly perpendicularly to the metal surface. In contrast, the absence of a SERS signal in the region of conjugated C[triple bond]C bond stretchings confirmed a polymerization scheme with conjugated triple bonds nearly parallel to the plane of the metal.