The J-band of organic dyes:: lineshape and coherence length

Self-organised J-aggregates of dye molecules, known for over 60 years, are emerging as remarkably versatile quantum systems with applications in photography, opto-electronics, solar cells, photobiology and as supra-molecular fibres. Recently there has been much effort to achieve quantum entanglement and coherence on the nanoscale in atom traps and quantum dot aggregates (for use in quantum computing). We point out that the excitonic state of the J-aggregate is a text-book case of mesoscopic quantum coherence and entanglement. The establishment of coherence can literally be seen since the dye changes colour dramatically on aggregation due to strong shifts in the absorption spectrum. Here we reproduce in a simple theory the shifts and shapes of optical absorption spectra upon aggregation to a polymer and calculate the coherence length of quantum entanglement of monomer wavefunctions. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V..