Photophysics of Molecular Materials – From Single Molecules to Single Crystals

Carbon based pi-conjugated materials offer a broad range of applications, going from molecular electronics and single molecule devices to nanotechnology, plastic electronics and optoelectronics. The proper physical description of such materials is in between that of molecular solids and that of low-dimensional covalent semiconductors. This book is a comprehensive review of their elementary excitations processes and dynamics, which merges the two viewpoints, sometimes very different if not contrasting. In each chapter, a broad tutorial introduction provides a solid physical background to the topic, which is further discussed based on recent experimental results obtained via state-of-the-art techniques. Both the molecular, intra-chain character and the solid state, inter-molecular physics is addressed.Reports on single molecule and single polymer chain spectroscopy introduce the on-site phenomena. Several chapters are dedicated to nano-probes, steady state and transient spectroscopies. The highly ordered state, occurring in single crystals, is also discussed thoroughly. Finally, less conventional tools such as THz spectroscopy are discussed in detail. The book provides a useful introduction to the field for newcomers, and a valid reference for experienced researchers in the field.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction 2. Optical microscopy and spectroscopy of single molecules 3. Optical Properties of single conjugated polymer chains: The case of polydiacetylenes 4. Morphology correlated photophysics in organic semiconductor thin films by confocal laser microscopy and spectroscopy 5. Spectroscopy of long lived photoexcitations in pi-conjugated systems 6. Charge transport in disordered organic semiconductors 7. Probing organic semiconductors with terahertz pulses 8. Strong exciton polaritons in anisotropic crystals: Macroscopic polarization and exciton properties 9. Sub 5 fs spectroscopy of polydiacetylene 10. Ultrafast optoelectronic probing of excited states in low-dimensional carbon-based pi-conjugated materials

About the Author :
Guglielmo Lanzani graduated in Solid State Physics at the University of Milan, Italy in 1987 and received his PhD in Chemical Physics at the University of Genova in 1991. Starting 1993 he was researcher at the Istituto di Matematica e Fisica of the University of Sassari, Italy. Since 1999 he has been Associate Professor at the Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Milano, Italy. His research activity is focused on the experimental investigation of carbon based -conjugated materials, with particular interest to elementary excitation dynamics in the ultrafast time domain. He has co-authored about 130 articles and several reviews in journals and book publications.