Electronic and Optical Properties of Conjugated Polymers
International Series of Monographs on Physics Series, Vol. 129

Conjugated polymers have important technological applications, including solar cells and light emitting displays. They are also active components in many important biological processes. In recent years there have been significant advances in our understanding of these systems, owing to both improved experimental measurements and the development of advanced computational techniques. The aim of this book is to describe and explain the electronic and optical properties of conjugated polymers. It focuses on the character and energetic ordering of the electronic states and relates these properties to experimental observations in real systems. A number of important optical and electronic processes in conjugated polymers are also described.

1. Introduction to Conjugated Polymers. 2. Pi-Electron Theory of Conjugated Polymers. 3. Non-Interacting Electrons. 4. Electron-Lattice Coupling I: Non-Interacting Electrons. 5. Interacting Electrons. 6. Excitons in Conjugated Polymers. 7. Electron-Lattice Coupling II: Interacting Electrons. 8. Optical Processes in Conjugated Polymers. 9. Electronic Processes in Conjugated Polymers. 10. Linear Polyenes and Trans-Polyacetylene. 11. Light Emitting Polymers. A. Dirac Bra-ket Operator Representation of One-Particle Hamiltonians. B. Particle-Hole Symmetry and Average Occupation Number. C. Single-Particle Eigensolutions of a Periodic Polymer Chain. D. Derivation of the Effective-Particle Schroedinger Equation. E. Hydrogenic Solutions to the Effective-Particle Exciton Models. F. Evaluation of the Electronic Transition Dipole Moments. G. Valence-Bond Description of Benzene. H. Density Matrix Renormalization Group Method.

William Barford, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford