Coherent Control of Charge Transport in Photoexcited trans-Polyacetylene
by
Ignacio Franco
University of Toronto
Coauthors: Paul Brumer

Conjugated polymers are of interest both for their broad technological applications and also because they are model systems to gain fundamental understanding of the properties of soft organic and biological matter. The photoexcited dynamics of these systems is characterized by a strong coupling between, and mutual influence of, nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom. This, in turn, gives rise to a very rich photophysics of solitons, polarons and excitons (self-localized nonlinear excitations associated with a lattice distortion) and constitutes an important distinction between "soft" materials and rigid solids based on semiconductor or crystalline metal materials.

In this talk we present numerical simulations of the highly nonlinear electron-vibrational dynamics of trans-polyacetylene under the influence of a symmetry breaking coherent control scenario. We show how the interference between a one-photon and a two-photon route can be used to induce directed electronic transport along the backbone of the conjugated polymer and assess the effect of the electron-phonon interactions on the applicability of the scenario.

Date received: July 20, 2004