The electronic character of PTCDA thin films in comparison to other perylene-based organic semi-conductors: ab initio-, TD-DFT and semi-empirical computations of the opto-electronic properties of large aggregates.

Perylene-based compounds are promising materials for opto-electronic thin film devices but despite intense investigations, important details of their electronic structure are still under debate. For perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic dianhydrid (PTCDA), the theoretical models predict a different relative energetic order of Frenkel and Charge Transfer (CT) states. Additionally, while one model indicates strong differences between PTCDA on one hand and other perylene-based compounds on the other, recent ab initio computations indicate electronic properties of all perylene-based compounds to resemble each other. Finally, the models disagree about the amount of mixing between CT and Frenkel states. Definitive answers to these questions are difficult because the approaches use various approximations. Up to date, the ab initio based methods employ rather small model systems and neglect environmental effects. In the present work, we improve our former approach by analyzing the effects of the various simplifications. In more detail, we increase the size of the model systems, include environmental effects and investigate the influence of exciton-phonon couplings on the absorption spectrum. The computations for larger aggregates were performed with the ZINDO/S approach, because benchmark computations show that it provides accurate vertical excitation energies for Frenkel, as well as CT states.

Exciton-Vibrational Couplings in Homo- and Heterodimer Stacks of Perylene Bisimide Dyes within Cyclophanes: Studies on Absorption Properties and Theoretical Analysis.

The optical properties of a series of three cyclophanes comprising either identical or different perylene bisimide (PBI) chromophores were studied by UV/Vis absorption spectroscopy and their distinctive spectral features were analyzed. All the investigated cyclophanes show significantly different absorption features with respect to the corresponding constituent PBI monomers indicating strong coupling interactions between the PBI units within the cyclophanes. DFT calculations suggest a π-stacked arrangement of the PBI units at close van der Waals distance in the cyclophanes with rotational displacement. Simulations of the absorption spectra based on time-dependent quantum mechanics properly reproduced the experimental spectra, revealing exciton-vibrational coupling between the chromophores both in homo- and heterodimer stacks. The PBI cyclophane comprising two different PBI chromophores represents the first example of a PBI heterodimer stack for which the exciton coupling has been investigated. The quantum dynamics analysis reveals that exciton coupling in heteroaggregates is indeed of similar strength as for homoaggregates.

Atomically flat single-crystalline gold nanostructures for plasmonic nanocircuitry.

Deep subwavelength integration of high-definition plasmonic nanostructures is of key importance in the development of future optical nanocircuitry for high-speed communication, quantum computation and lab-on-a-chip applications. To date, the experimental realization of proposed extended plasmonic networks consisting of multiple functional elements remains challenging, mainly because of the multi-crystallinity of commonly used thermally evaporated gold layers. This can produce structural imperfections in individual circuit elements that drastically reduce the yield of functional integrated nanocircuits. In this paper we demonstrate the use of large (>100 µm(2)) but thin (<80 nm) chemically grown single-crystalline gold flakes that, after immobilization, serve as an ideal basis for focused ion beam milling and other top-down nanofabrication techniques on any desired substrate. Using this methodology we obtain high-definition ultrasmooth gold nanostructures with superior optical properties and reproducible nano-sized features over micrometre-length scales. Our approach provides a possible solution to overcome the current fabrication bottleneck and realize high-definition plasmonic nanocircuitry.