Theory of hot exciton dissociation in conjugated polymers

We consider on-chain dissociation of an exciton created on a conjugated polymer chain by optical excitation above the absorption edge. Assuming that the excess excitation energy is stored in several phonons, we estimate the rate of dissociation by phonon absorption when one of the carriers (electron or hole) is ejected into a delocalized state of the conduction or valence band. We obtain the characteristic time for this process to be less than 100 fs. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.