Nature of the optical band shapes in polymethine dyes and H-aggregates: dozy chaos and excitons. Comparison with dimers, H*- and J-aggregates

Abstract

Results on the theoretical explanation of the shape of optical bands in polymethine dyes, their dimers and aggregates are summarized. The theoretical dependence of the shape of optical bands for the dye monomers in the vinylogous series in line with a change in the solvent polarity is considered. A simple physical (analytical) model of the shape of optical absorption bands in H-aggregates of polymethine dyes is developed based on taking the dozy-chaos dynamics of the transient state and the Frenkel exciton effect in the theory of molecular quantum transitions into account. As an example, the details of the experimental shape of one of the known H-bands are well reproduced by this analytical model under the assumption that the main optical chromophore of H-aggregates is a tetramer resulting from the two most probable processes of inelastic binary collisions in sequence: first, monomers between themselves, and then, between the resulting dimers. The obtained results indicate that in contrast with the compact structure of J-aggregates (brickwork structure), the structure of H-aggregates is not the compact pack-of-cards structure, as stated in the literature, but a loose alternate structure. Based on this theoretical model, a simple general (analytical) method for treating the more complex shapes of optical bands in polymethine dyes in comparison with the H-band under consideration is proposed. This method mirrors the physical process of molecular aggregates forming in liquid solutions: aggregates are generated in the most probable processes of inelastic multiple binary collisions between polymethine species generally differing in complexity. The results obtained are given against a background of the theoretical results on the shape of optical bands in polymethine dyes and their aggregates (dimers, H*- and J-aggregates) previously obtained by V.V.E.