Room-Temperature Micron-Scale Exciton Migration in a Stabilized Emissive Molecular Aggregate

Nano Lett. 2016 Nov 9;16(11):6808-6815. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b02529. Epub 2016 Oct 5.

Abstract

We report 1.6 ± 1 μm exciton transport in self-assembled supramolecular light-harvesting nanotubes (LHNs) assembled from amphiphillic cyanine dyes. We stabilize LHNs in a sucrose glass matrix, greatly reducing light and oxidative damage and allowing the observation of exciton-exciton annihilation signatures under weak excitation flux. Fitting to a one-dimensional diffusion model, we find an average exciton diffusion constant of 55 ± 20 cm2/s, among the highest measured for an organic system. We develop a simple model that uses cryogenic measurements of static and dynamic energetic disorder to estimate a diffusion constant of 32 cm2/s, in agreement with experiment. We ascribe large exciton diffusion lengths to low static and dynamic energetic disorder in LHNs. We argue that matrix-stabilized LHNS represent an excellent model system to study coherent excitonic transport.

Keywords: J-aggregate; coherent exciton; exciton; exciton delocalization; exciton diffusion; molecular aggregate.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't