High-Symmetry Anthradithiophene Molecular Packing Motifs Promote Thermally Activated Singlet Fission

When considering the optimal molecular packing to realize charge multiplication in organic photovoltaic materials, subtle changes in intermolecular charge transfer (CT) coupling can strongly modulate singlet fission. To understand why certain packing arrangements are more conducive to charge multiplication by triplet pair (TT) formation, we measure the diffraction-limited transient absorption (TA) response from four single-crystal functionalized derivatives of fluorinated anthradithiophene: diF R-ADT (R = TES, TSBS, TDMS, TBDMS). diF TES-ADT and diF TDMS-ADT both exhibit 2D brickwork packing structures, diF TSBS-ADT adopts a 1D sandwich-herringbone packing structure, and diF TBDMS-ADT exhibits a 1D twisted-columnar packing structure. When brickwork or twisted-columnar single crystals are resonantly probed parallel to their charge transfer (CT)-axis projections, the TA signal is dominated by a rising component on the picosecond time scale (rate k_TT), attributed to TT state population. When probed orthogonal to the CT-axis, we instead recover the falling TA kinetics of singlet state depletion at rate k_A. The rising to falling rate ratio estimates the TT formation efficiency, ϵ_TT= k_TT/k_Arelative to exciton self-trapping. ϵ_TTranged from near 100% in diF TES-ADT to 84% in diF TDMS-ADT. Interestingly, diF TSBS-ADT crystals only manifest falling kinetics of CT-mediated self-trapping and singlet state depletion. Singlet fission is prohibitive in diF TSBS-ADT crystals owing to its lower symmetry sandwich-herringbone packing that leads to S₁to CT-state energy separation that is ∼3× larger than in other packings. Collectively, these results highlight optimal packing configurations that either enhance or completely suppress CT-mediated TT formation.