Photoproduction of spin and charge carriers in halogen-bridged binuclear platinum chain complexes

Nonlinear lattice relaxation of photoexcited diplatinum-halide chain compounds is theoretically investigated within a one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model. We first illuminate the whole relaxation scenario in terms of variational wavefunctions and then visualize each relaxation channel numerically integrating the Schrodinger equation. High-energy excitations above the electron-hole continuum tend to relax into polarons, while excitons pumped within the optical gap, unless luminescent, turn into solitonic states nonradiatively. Neutral and charged solitons coexist as stable photoproducts, which has never been observed in conventional platinum-halide chains, and they are highly resonant on the occasion of their birth and geminate recombination.