Peak and steady-state photocurrents in a molecular diode

It has been shown that the time evolution of a photocurrent under the conditions of the irradiation of a photochromic molecule by moderate-intensity light includes the fast and slow stages of the kinetic process. The fast stage corresponds to an increase in the current and is associated with the charging of the molecule, which is in a singlet excited state after a phototransition. The slow stage includes electron transfer between electrodes involving both charged and excited (singlet and triplet) states of the molecule. When the exchange interaction of unpaired electrons on the HOMO and LUMO levels of the photoexcited molecule is weak, the steady-state photocurrent is close in magnitude to the maximum transient current, whereas the steady-state current is suppressed when the exchange interaction is strong. The reason is that a molecule in the triplet state can block electron transfer between electrodes. The conditions have been found under which such blocking is a manifestation of the peak transient photocurrent that is formed immediately after the beginning of the irradiation of the molecule.