Real-space coupled-oscillator approach to the radiative decay of conjugated polymers

The optical response of conjugated polymers is calculated using a one-dimensional tight-binding model with Coulomb interactions, and adopting the multipolar form for the electromagnetic field Hamiltonian. By formulating the problem using the reduced single-electron density matrix and its evolution in Liouville space, we obtain a real-space description for the elementary electronic excitations. A unified expression for the linear response including radiative decay, which is valid for arbitrary chain size compared with the optical wavelength, is described. For small sizes it shows exciton confinement effects on the radiative decay and for larger sizes it fully incorporates polariton effects.