Photoexcitation spectroscopy of photoinduced electron transfer in conducting polymer-Buckminsterfullerene composites

We present a comparative study of the steady state photo-induced absorption of conducting polymers mixed with Buckminsterfullerene, C60. For conjugated polymers with nondegenerate ground state as donors, electron transfer takes place prior to either radiative or nonradiative recombination of (pi) -electron photoexcitations on the conducting polymer. In the case of a conjugated polymer with degenerate ground state as donor, the structural relaxation associated with the formation of charged solitons is faster, and no indications of photoinduced charge transfer are observed.