Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2024 Conference (MATSUSFall24)
Publication date: 28th August 2024
Chiral light-matter interactions in solution-processable semiconductors
Tejas Deshpande,† Antti-Pekka M. Reponen,† and Sascha Feldmann
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
Chirality is a property which is widely observed in nature and refers to the characteristic that an object cannot be superimposed on its mirror image. Recently, chiral solution-processable semiconductors have seen a surge of interest for their potential applications in emerging photonic, optoelectronic and spintronic technologies [1]. Yet, the underlying chiral light-matter interactions, especially in the excited state, which lead to spin and light polarization remain poorly understood [2].
Here, we present our preliminary results on using transient chiroptical spectroscopy to understand the consequences of morphological (hierarchical) chirality for charge, spin and light polarization. We compare achiral chromophores in solution and a solid-state matrix with their arrangement into chiral twisted molecular crystal films with large chiral domains. Our results reveal complex photophysics and unexpectedly even point towards persistent excited-state chirality induced by circularly-polarized excitation.
By studying transient chiral light-matter interactions we hope to aid in understanding the mechanistic origin of chiral-induced spin-selectivity (CISS) and leverage such spin polarization for efficient emission of circularly polarized light from cheap solution-processable semiconductors.
†These authors contributed equally to the work
[1] Nature Reviews Materials 8, 365 (2023)
[2] Nature Reviews Chemistry, in press (2024)
Antti-Pekka M. Reponen and Tejas Deshpande contributed equally to the work.