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Title: Heterodyne transient vibrational SFG to reveal molecular responses to interfacial charge transfer
We demonstrate heterodyne detected transient vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy and use it to probe transient electric fields caused by interfacial charge transfer at organic semiconductor and metal interfaces. The static and transient VSFG spectra are composed of both non-resonant and molecular resonant responses. To further disentangle both contributions, we apply phase rotation to make the imaginary part of the spectra be purely molecular responses and the real part of the spectra be dominated by non-resonant signals. By separating non-resonant and molecular signals, we can track their responses to the transient electric-fields at interfaces independently. This technique combined with the phase sensitivity gained by heterodyne detection allows us to successfully identify three types of photoinduced dynamics at organic semiconductor/metal interfaces: coherent artifacts, optical excitations that do not lead to charge transfer, and direct charge transfers. The ability to separately follow the influence of built-in electric fields to interfacial molecules, regardless of strong nonresonant signals, will enable tracking of ultrafast charge dynamics with molecular specificities on molecular optoelectronics, photovoltaics, and solar materials.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1808111
NSF-PAR ID:
10101512
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of chemical physics
Volume:
150
ISSN:
1520-9032
Page Range / eLocation ID:
114706
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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