Elementary excitations and optical absorption in a polyacene chain

Within a tight-binding Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, the elementary excitations and optical absorption of a polyacene chain are investigated. The polyacene chain composed of a number of aromatic rings is considered as two strongly coupled polyacetylene chains with an open boundary condition. First of all we found an interchain-coupled neutral soliton in a pristine chain as a consequence of odd-number sites in each chain. There are two localized electronic states accompanying the soliton and appearing in the conduction and valence bands, respectively. Moreover, an injected electron or hole will induce a polaron-like deformation mixed with the interchain soliton, while two extra electrons or holes will result in three separate solitons, among which one is doubly charged and other two are neutral. The optical absorption due to these elementary excitations are obtained.