Conformational disorder of a substituted polythiophene in solution revealed by excitation transfer

Anisotropy and isotropic transient absorption decays of a polythiophene der ivative in dilute solution have been measured and compared to calculated de cays on Monte Carlo simulated polymer chains to obtain knowledge about the geometrical conformation of the polymer. The polymer chain conformations ar e generated by a partially correlated self-avoiding random walk. Excitation migration along the isolated chain is modeled assuming a hopping mechanism . This approach can be used to determine conformational disorder and possib le realizations of the polymer chains in solution as well as the trapping t ime and migration length of the excitation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.