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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Raman and IR Spectroelectrochemical Methods as Tools to Analyze Conjugated Organic Compounds
Published on: October 12, 2018
Raman spectroscopic studies of terthiophenes for molecular electronics
Fredrik Svedberg1, Yury Alaverdyan, Patrik Johansson
1Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden. fredriks@fy.chalmers.se
Abstract:
The effect of thiol and selenol functionalization on the vibrational spectra and photochemical stability of terthiophene based molecular wires was investigated using surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The molecules were found to exhibit markedly different properties at the silver surface of the SERS substrate, despite having almost identical Raman spectra in solution and in the solid state. In contrast to terthiophene (3T), the bisthiolterthiophene (T3) and biselenol-terthiophene (Se3) molecules were stable against photoinduced structural changes when adsorbed to the metal surface at low concentrations. This indicates that the strong bonds to the silver surface, via S or Se terminal atoms, leads to a rapid decay of photoexcited states. Comparison with ab initio calculations shows that both T3 and Se3 bind with only one of the functional groups to the Ag surface.
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