Dynamics of Excited States for Fluorescent Emitters with Hybridized Local and Charge-Transfer Excited State in Solid Phase: A QM/MM Study

The highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDS) based on fluorescent emitters with hybridized local and charge-transfer (HLCT) excited state have attracted great attention recently. The excited-state dynamics of the fluorescent molecule with consideration of molecular interaction are studied using the hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics method. The results show that, in solid state, the internal conversion rate (K-IC) between the first singlet excited state (S1) and the ground state (SO) is smaller than the fluorescent rate (K-r), while in gas phase K-IC is much larger than K-r. By analyzing the Huang-Rhys (HR) factor and reorganization energy (lambda), we find that these two parameters in solid state are much smaller than those in gas phase due to the suppression of the vibration modes in low-frequency regions (<200 cm(-1)) related with dihedral angles between donor and acceptor groups. This is further demonstrated by the geometrical analysis that variation of the dihedral angle between geometries of S1 and S0 is smaller in solid state than that in gas phase. Moreover, combining the dynamics of the excited states and the adiabatic energy structures calculated in solid state, we illustrate the suggested "hot-exciton" mechanism of the HLCT emitters in OLEDs. Our work presents a rational explanation for the experimental results and demonstrates the importance of molecular interaction for theoretical simulation of the working principle of OLEDs.