Revealing the charge-transfer interactions in self-assembled organic cocrystals: two-dimensional photonic applications

Abstract

A new crystal of a charge-transfer (CT) complex was prepared through supramolecular assembly and it has unique two-dimensional (2D) morphology. The CT nature of the ground and excited states of this new Bpe-TCNB cocrystal (BTC) were confirmed by electron spin resonance measurements, spectroscopic studies, and theoretical calculations, thus providing a comprehensive understanding of the CT interactions in organic donor-acceptor systems. And the lowest CT1 excitons are responsible for the efficient photoluminescence (Φ(PL)=19%), which can actively propagate in individual 2D BTCs without anisotropy, thus implying that the optical waveguide property of the crystal is not related to the molecular stacking structure. This unique 2D CT cocrystal exhibits potential for use in functional photonic devices in the next-generation optoelectronic communications.

Keywords: charge transfer; crystal engineering; density functional calculations; donor-acceptor systems; self-assembly.