Vibrational Frequency used as Internal Clock Reference to access Molecule -- Metal Charge Transfer Times

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that vibrational frequencies can serve as an internal clock to measure ultrafast charge transfer times at molecule-metal interfaces, especially near the Fermi energy, using vibrational excitations and electron-vibron coupling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to access charge transfer times at molecule-metal interfaces via vibrational oscillations as an internal clock, addressing a gap in current ultrafast spectroscopy techniques.

Findings

Charge transfer occurs on a few femtoseconds timescale.

Vibrational excitations reveal asymmetric line shapes due to non-adiabatic coupling.

Vibrational period can be used as an internal clock to measure charge transfer times.

Abstract

Dynamical charge transfer processes at molecule-metal interfaces proceed in the few fs time scale that renders them highly relevant to electronic excitations in optoelectronic devices. Yet, knowledge thereof is limited when electronic ground state situations are considered that implicate charge transfer directly at the fermi energy. Here we show that such processes can be accessed by means of vibrational excitations, with non-adiabatic electron-vibron coupling leading to distinct asymmetric line shapes. Thereby the characteristic time scale of this interfacial dynamical charge transfer can be derived by using the vibrational oscillation period as an internal clock reference.