High symmetry anthradithiophene molecular packing motifs promote thermally-activated singlet fission

TL;DR

This study investigates how different molecular packing structures in anthradithiophene derivatives influence singlet fission efficiency, revealing that certain packings promote charge transfer and triplet pair formation, while others inhibit it.

Contribution

It provides detailed experimental insights into how specific molecular packing motifs affect singlet fission in functionalized anthradithiophene crystals, highlighting the importance of packing symmetry and structure.

Findings

Brickwork and twisted-columnar packings enhance triplet pair formation.

Lower symmetry herringbone packing suppresses singlet fission.

Packing structure influences charge transfer state energy separation.

Abstract

When considering the optimal molecular packing to realize charge multiplication in organic photovoltaic materials, subtle changes in intermolecular charge transfer (CT) coupling can strongly modulate singlet fission. To understand why certain packing morphologies are more conducive to charge multiplication by triplet pair (TT) formation, we measure the diffraction-limited transient absorption (TA) response from four single-crystal functionalized derivatives of fluorinated anthradithiophene: diF R-ADT (R = TES, TSBS, TDMS, TBDMS). diF TES-ADT and diF TDMS-ADT both exhibit 2D brickwork packing structures, diF TSBS-ADT adopts a 1D sandwich-herringbone packing structure, and diF TBDMS-ADT exhibits a 1D twisted-columnar packing structure. When brickwork or twisted-columnar single crystals are resonantly probed parallel to their charge transfer (CT)-axis projections, the TA signal is dominated by a rising component on the picosecond timescale (rate $k_{TT}$) attributed to TT state population. When probed orthogonal to the CT-axis, we instead recover the falling TA kinetics of singlet state depletion at rate, $k_{A}$. The rising to falling rate ratio estimates the TT formation efficiency, $\epsilon_{TT}$ = $k_{TT}/k_A$ relative to exciton self-trapping. $\epsilon_{TT}$ ranged from near unity in diF TES-ADT to 84% in diF TDMS-ADT. Interestingly, diF TSBS-ADT crystals only manifest falling kinetics of CT-mediated self-trapping and singlet state depletion. Singlet fission is prohibitive in diF TSBS-ADT crystals owing to its lower symmetry sandwich herringbone packing that leads to $S_1$ to CT-state energy separation that is ~3x larger than in other packings. Collectively, these results highlight optimal packing configurations that either enhance or completely suppress CT-mediated TT-pair formation.