Excited states structure and processes: Understanding organic light-emitting diodes at the molecular level

Photo- or electro-excited states in polyatomic molecules, aggregates, and conjugated polymers are at the center of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). These can decay radiatively or non-radiatively, determining the luminescence quantum efficiency of molecular materials. According to Kasha’s rule, light-emission is dictated by the lowest-lying excited state. For conjugated polymers, the electron correlation effect can lead the lowest-lying excited state to the even-parity 2Ag state which is non-emissive. To understand the nature of the low-lying excited state structure, we developed the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) theory and its symmetrization scheme for quantum chemistry applied to calculate the excited states structure. We found there are three types of 1Bu/2Ag crossover behaviors: with electron correlation strength U, with bond length alternation, and with conjugation length. These directly influence the light-emitting property. For the electro-excitation, carriers (electron and hole) are injected independently, forming both singlet and triplet excited bound states with statistically 25% and 75% portions, respectively. We found that the exciton formation rate can depend on spin manifold, and for conjugated polymers, the singlet exciton can have larger formation rate leading to the internal electroluminescence quantum efficiency larger than the 25% spin statistical limit. It is originated from the interchain electron correlation as well as intrachain lattice relaxation. For the dipole allowed emissive state, the radiative decay process via either spontaneous emission or stimulated emission can be computed from electronic structure plus vibronic couplings. The challenging issue lies in the non-radiative decay via non-adiabatic coupling and/or spin–orbit coupling. We developed a unified correlation function formalism for the excited state radiative and non-radiative decay rates. We emphasized the low-frequency mode mixing (Duschinsky rotation) effect on the non-radiative decay. We further combined the non-adiabatic coupling and spin–orbit coupling for the triplet state decay (phosphorescence) quantum efficiency. All the formalisms have been developed analytically, which have been applied to optical spectroscopy, aggregation-induced emission phenomena, and polymer photovoltaic property.