Dynamics of polaron formation in a polymer/metal structure

By considering a polymer/metal structure within a tight-binding one-dimensional model, we investigate the nonadiabatic dynamical process of the charge injection from the metal segment into the organic segment and the polaron formation in the polymer. It is shown that the charge will be injected into the polymer when Fermi energy of the metal is raised to a threshold, which is lower than the bottom of the conduction band and higher than the polaron electronic state, and the polaron will be formed at around hundreds of femtoseconds. The damping is introduced to help the formation of the charged polaron, since the lattice vibration may destroy the polaron.