According to the theoretical model based on the Mueller matrix approach, the experimental electronic circular dichroism (ECD) for thin films of chiral organic dyes can be expressed as the sum of several contributions, two of which are the most significant: 1) an intrinsic component (CDiso) invariant upon sample orientation, reflecting the molecular and/or supramolecular chirality, due to 3D-chiral nanoscopic structures; 2) a non-reciprocal component (LDLB) which inverts its sign upon sample flipping, which arises from the interaction of linear dichroism and linear birefringence in locally anisotropic domains, expression of 2D-chiral micro/mesoscopic structures. In this work, we followed in parallel through ECD and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) the temperature evolution of the supramolecular arrangements of thin films of five structurally related chiral thiophene-based oligomers with different LDLB/CDiso ratio. By increasing the temperature, regardless of phase transitions observed by DSC analysis, systems with strong CDiso revealed no changes in the ECD spectrum, while compounds with dominant LDLB contribution underwent a gradual (and reversible) reduction of (apparent) ECD signals. These findings demonstrated that the concomitant occurrence of intrinsic and non-reciprocal components in the ECD spectrum of thin films of chiral organic dyes is strictly correlated with solid-state organizations of different stability.
Keywords: chiral materials; electronic circular dichroism; oligothiophenes; solid-state organization; thin films.
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