Ultrafast and Long-Range Exciton Migration through Anisotropic Coulombic Coupling in the Textured Films of Fused-Ring Electron Acceptors

作者：Zhou, Jiadong; Wen, Xinbo; Tang, Ningning; Zhou, Xuehong; Wang, Cong; Zheng, Nan; Liu, Linlin; Xie, Zengqi^*

来源：Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2020, 11(18): 7908-7913.

DOI：10.1021/acs.jpclett.0c02569

• DIFFUSION
• RELAXATION
• TRANSPORT
• STACKING

The exciton migration mechanism in organic photovoltaic devices is still an ambiguity owing to the insufficient understanding of molecular arrangement on a microscopic scale. Herein, we reveal the relationship between the molecular stacking modes and exciton migration for a representative fused-ring electron acceptor, namely, ITIC. The precise molecular stacking patterns are extracted, and directional Coulombic couplings are calculated based on the information of a single-crystal structure, which proves the anisotropic character for exciton motion. The theoretical analysis results indicate ultrafast exciton migration along the head-to-tail stacking directions with maximum migration length of 330 nm in the finite lifetime of 1 ns. Experimentally, the exciton diffusion length is determined to be 183 nm by exciton-exciton annihilation measurement. This work reveals head-to-tail type intermolecular stacking induces strong anisotropic Coulombic coupling, leading to the ultrafast and long-range exciton migration in nonfullerene systems.