Dynamics of electronic energy transfer in linear chain polymers

The influence of chain conformational motion and of inhomogeneous broadening on the kinetics of incoherent energy transport in linear polymer chains is considered. The main results obtained are: (i) A simple expression for the donor decay law in the static case. (ii) Also in the static case, it is concluded that inhomogeneous broadening affects the dynamics of incoherent energy transport if the width of inhomogeneous broadening is larger than kT. (iii) Chain conformational motion becomes important if the average time for conformational change is much shorter than the intrinsic lifetime. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.