Exciton formation as a rate limiting step for charge recombination in disordered organic molecules or polymers

The exciton formation (direct charge recombination) is studied and quantified as a function of material physical-properties such as the exciton binding energy, the exciton lifetime, and the mechanism causing the electronic disorder. By using a model that is an extension of a charge transport model [Y. Preezant and N. Tessler, Phys. Rev. B 74, 235202 (2006)[ we are able to compare the direct exciton formation rate with the one predicted by the Langevin model. Using reasonable material parameters we find that in many cases the overall balance between free charge carrier and excitons is significantly affected by the exciton formation rate with its values being significantly low compared to the Langevin rate. We also find that in order to describe the complete recombination process it is important to introduce an intermediate state which we term exciton-precursor. This is in contrast to the common practice of using the Langevin model which embeds the assumption that the exciton formation rate is negligibly fast. The relations found between the physical-properties and the recombination rate can explain why certain materials exhibit Langevin rate while others exhibit significantly suppressed rates. This would eventually lead to the design of new materials better suited for either photocells or light-emitting diodes.