Coherence and Uncertainty in Nanostructured Organic Photovoltaics

The effects of fundamental uncertainty present a compelling rationale for a highly delocalized photoexcitation on ultrafast time scales. This delocalized photoexcitation enables an immediate probability of charge-transfer over distances compatible with the uncertainty principle. We perform transient absorption measurements on organic bulk heterojunction solar cells to investigate charge-transfer dynamics in a variety of materials. A startling generality emerges indicating that the majority of charge carriers are generated at times within the temporal resolution of our instrument (∼100 fs).