Effect of the Pauli exclusion principle on the singlet exciton yield in conjugated polymers

Abstract

Optical devices fabricated using conjugated polymer systems give rise to singlet exciton yields which are high compared to the statistically predicted estimate of 25% obtained using simple recombination schemes. In this study we evaluate the singlet exciton yield in conjugated polymers systems by fitting to a model that incorporates the Pauli exclusion principle. The rate equations which describe the exciton dynamics include quantum dynamical components (both density and spin-dependent) which arise during the spin-allowed conversion of composite intra-molecular excitons into loosely bound charge-transfer (CT) electron-hole pairs. Accordingly, a crucial mechanism by which singlet excitons are increased at the expense of triplet excitons is incorporated in this work. Non-ideal triplet excitons which form at high densities, are rerouted via the Pauli exclusion mechanism to form loosely bound CT states which subsequently convert to singlet excitons. Our derived expression for the yield in singlet exciton incorporates the purity measure, and provides a realistic description of the carrier dynamics at high exciton densities.