Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113, Japan
Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113, Japan
Tsukuba Research Laboratory, Japan Synthetic Rubber Co., Ltd., Tsukuba 305, Japan
Abstract:
Photoinduced phase transitions have been observed between the two phases in single crystals of polydiacetylenes with side-groups of alkylurethanes. The threshold of the excitation intensity for the photochromism is extremely low, one absorbed photon per 140 repeated backbone units, indicating a collective nature of the photoconversion. The excitation spectra for the converted fraction clearly show that the photoinduced phase transition is mediated by photogeneration of polaronic species and not of singlet excitons.