Optical absorption in the substituted phenylene-based conjugated polymers: theory and experiment

We investigate theoretically and experimentally the effects of (2,5) chemical substitution on the optical absorption in the phenylene-based conjugated polymers. Theoretically, substitution destroys both the charge-conjugation symmetry and spatial symmetry that characterize the unsubstituted materials. Within Coulomb-correlated theoretical models, the effect of broken charge-conjugation symmetry alone on the underlying electronic structure and on the absorption spectrum is rather weak. When both broken spatial symmetry and broken charge-conjugation symmetry are taken into account, a strong effect on the electronic structure of polyphenylene derivatives is found. In spite of the strong effect of the broken symmetries on the electronic structure, the effect on the optical-absorption spectrum is weak.