Charge and Exciton Dynamics in Hybrid Materials Probed by Time Resolved Soft X-Ray Spectroscopies at ELETTRA Synchrotron

In the fields of optoelectronics and photochemistry there is growing interest in studying the response to optical excitation of organic molecules, films and interfaces, as these systems are of fundamental relevance for the development of the next generation of environmentally sustainable optoelectronic devices and catalysts. In order to probe the charge and exciton dynamics in such materials down to the sub-nanosecond timescale we developed a setup at the ALOISA beamline of the Elettra synchrotron that exploits the chemical selectivity of X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray photoemission (XPS) in an optical pump/X-ray probe experiment. In this talk, I will present our recent results on tracking triplet dynamics in pentacene and perylene thin films. The role of the film morphology will be discussed by comparing the response of perylene molecules with different terminations. Finally, I will show how the developed setup can be used to follow a structural transition in few examples of 2D-materials.