Excitation Transport in Polymeric Solids

Abstract

By attaching chromophores to polymer backbones, it is possible to make complex chromophore systems in which changes in the nature of the polymer or changes in the environment of the polymer have substantial influences on the nature and rate of electronic excitation transport. Chromophores bound to a polymer chain (tagged chain) or microphase separated domains of tagged chains are finite volume excitation transport systems with complex, nonrandom, distributions of chromophores. We have developed a general statistical mechanical theoretical approach for describing energy transport in complex, finite (or infinite) volume systems. We have also employed time resolved fluorescence depolarization experiments to test the theory and make the first detailed measurements of energy transport in complex systems.