Publications by authors named "Leni Akcelrud"

The rationale of this paper is to shed some light on the origin of the optical response of two similar chiral fluorene copolymers in correlation with their vibrational modes, to understand how a chiral center placed in a ramification affects the optical properties of the main chain. Various spectroscopic ellipsometric techniques, in the scope of the Stokes theory were used to characterize the optical-vibrational behavior of the polyfluorenes: ellipsometry in emission (EE), transmission (TE), and Raman (ERS). The results showed that the optical activity and the emission of the circularly polarized light depends substantially on the interaction of the chiral carbon in the ramification and the main chain through specific optically active vibrational modes, for each sample.

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Two copolymers, one containing a chiral center and another without any asymmetric site are studied regarding their chiro-optical properties. The pure polymers do not show any signal of chiro-optical activity, only a smooth line is observed in the circular dichroism spectra, even for the chiral material. However, blends containing the achiral one as a major component show striking chiro-optical activity, originating by stable supramolecular structures whose size and shape remain unchanged, regardless of the blend composition.

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Photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) spectra were used to probe the thermal relaxation processes of the poly(9,9'-n-dihexyl-2,7-fluorenediiylvinylene-alt-1,4-phenylenevinylene) (LaPPS16) electroluminescent polymer. A theoretical model of molecular excitons and Franck-Condon transitions were used to analyze the line shape of the radiative transitions. It was possible to correlate directly the electron-vibrational mode coupling, i.

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We studied the absorption line-shape of poly(p-phenylenevinylene) (PPV) films deposited via spin coating and Langmuir-Blodgett techniques with the intent of identifying the conjugation length distribution in these two types of films, a key morphological aspect of conjugated polymer films. We treated the excitons in the polymer as independent oligomer excitons and modeled the absorption spectra of the individual oligomers using simple expressions for the oligomer size dependence of the gap energy, the line-broadening factor, the transition dipole moment and the Huang-Rhys parameter. We validated these expressions by independent measurements on phenyl-based oligomers and Density Functional Theory calculations.

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The photophysical properties of a new alternating copolymer containing fluorene, terpyridine, and complexed sites with trivalent europium (Eu(3+)) ions (LaPPS66Eu) were investigated, using the non-complexed backbone (LaPPS66) and a low molecular weight compound of similar chemical structure of the ligand/Eu(3+) site (LaPPS66M) as a model compound. The analogous gadolinium complex (LaPPS66Gd) was also synthesized to determine the triplet state of the complex. (1)H and (13)C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), elemental analyses, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) characterized the chemical structure and thermal properties of the synthesized materials.

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The donor-acceptor copolymer containing benzothiadiazole (electron acceptor), linked to functionalized fluorene (electron donor), [poly[9,9-bis(3'-(tert-butyl propanoate))fluorene-co-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] (LaPPS40), was synthesized through the Suzuki route. The polymer was characterized by scanning electron microscopy, gel permeation chromatography, NMR, thermal analysis, cyclic voltammetry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV-vis spectrometry, and photophysical measurements. Theoretical calculations (density functional theory and semiempirical methodologies) used to simulate the geometry of some oligomers and the dipole moments of molecular orbitals involved were in excellent agreement with experimental results.

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The photophysical properties of a π-conjugated polymer containing 2,2'-bipyridyl alternated with 2,5-dihexyloxyphenylene units (PBPyDHP) are investigated experimentally in terms of the conditions used (solvent, concentration, presence or absence of molecular oxygen, and optical excitation power). The experimental results have suggested that the fluorescence from PBPyDHP can be tuned by proper selection of the experimental conditions showing only one or two emission peaks: 445 nm (blue) and 555 nm (green). The observed effects were interpreted in terms of the twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) theory.

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The excited-state dynamics of two polyfluorene copolymers, one fully conjugated containing phenylene vinylene units alternated with 9,9'-dihexylfluorenyl groups and the other segmented by -(CH2)8- spacer, were studied in dilute solution of different solvents using a picosecond single-photon timing technique. The excited-state dynamics of the segmented copolymer follows the Förster resonant energy-transfer model which describes intrachain energy-transfer kinetics among random oriented chromophores. Energy transfer is confirmed by analysis of fluorescence anisotropy relaxation with the measurement of a short decay component of about 60 ps.

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