Sensitive triplet exciton detection in polyfluorene using Pd-coordinated porphyrin

Abstract

We developed a sensitive spectroscopic method to probe triplet concentration in thin films of polyfluorene (PF) at room temperature. The energy of photoexcited triplet excitons is transferred to the guest metal–organic complex, meso-tetratolylporphyrin-Pd (PdTPP), and detected as phosphorescent emission. The phosphorescence intensity of PdTPP–PF blends is proportional to the independently measured triplet concentration using photoinduced absorption experiments. The high sensitivity of this method allows room temperature detection of triplet excitons in spin-coated polymer films as thin as 10 nm. We found that the triplet lifetime is independent of PdTPP concentration and therefore this method is nearly non-perturbing for the triplet population.