Spectral shape of photoluminescence in luminescent π conjugated polymers

In polyacetylene and polydiacetylene oligomers, photoluminescence (PL) is induced from the dipole-forbidden state by vibronic coupling. The assumption that the PL in polythiophene (PT) and poly(p-phenylene vinylene) (PPV) also includes this induced component, consistently explains many experimental results. In this work, we focus on the temperature dependence of the time-integrated and time-resolved PL spectra of a PT derivative and unsubstituted PPV, and demonstrate the validity of the above model for their temperature dependence. Applying this model to the hitherto unresolved drastic PL spectral change of unsubstituted PPV, we propose that the spectral change and the spectral shape itself can be understood as resulting from a contribution to the PL from the 2Ag state coupled with a change in the ordering of the 2Ag and the 1BU states at low temperatures.