Energy transfer from poly(vinyl carbazole) to a fluorene-vinylene copolymer in solution and in the solid state

This article reports a comparative study of the energy transfer processes in solution and the solid state from poly(vinyl carbazole; the donor) to dimethylphenyl-terminated poly[(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-divinylene-fluorene)-co-alt-{2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene}] (the acceptor). The results in solutions suggest that a decrease of the donor emission intensity with an increasing acceptor concentration is more closely related to the trivial energy transfer process, indicating that the donor and acceptor chains are not in close contact during the lifetime of the donor excited state. This conclusion was reached using the amplitude-averaged lifetime of the donor, which is practically independent of the acceptor concentration. In the solid state, the polymer blends showed a decrease in the donor emission with an increasing acceptor concentration, and a decrease in the donor lifetime was also observed. Thus, in the solid state, changes in morphology interfere with the nonradiative resonant energy transfer process, but influence on the trivial process cannot be completely neglected. The lifetime does not follow a continuous decrease with the PFO-MEHPV concentration like the emission intensity does. The changes in the lifetime values occur over the same concentration range as do the changes of morphology, as shown by the scanning electron micrographs.