Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 350
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50328-7

Regular Article

Photophysical study of P3HT/NDI based hybrid nanoparticles^*

¹ Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India
² Department of Materials Science, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, 700032 Kolkata, India
³ Polymer Science Unit, Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, 700032 Kolkata, India

^a e-mail: soumitrasatapathi@gmail.com

Received: 25 April 2014
Received in final form: 11 July 2014
Published online: 21 November 2014

Abstract

Electron donor-acceptor based hybrid novel structure remains a frontier area of research to design optoelectronic, photovoltaic, and light harvesting devices. Here, we report the synthesis of interdyad and intradyad nanoparticles by using the electron donating polymer Poly-3-(hexylthiophine)) (P3HT) and the electron accepting molecule 1, 4, 5, 8 naphthalene tetracarboxylic diimide (NDI). The intradyad nanostructures are fabricated in situ by adding donor and acceptor molecules simultaneously whereas interdyad nanoparticles are fabricated by attaching the donor and acceptor nanoparticles electrostatically. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) confirms the segmental motion of the polymer chain and the uniform packing in intradyad nanostructures which is absent in the interdyad system. The photoluminescence quenching and the shortening of decay time of the excited state of the donor molecule were observed with increasing the concentration of acceptor molecule in the intradyad system which is attributed to the photoinduced electron transfer from donor to the acceptor molecule. However, in the case of the interdyad system, the change in photoluminescence quenching and the decay time is less significant due to different photophysical processes.