Spectroscopic signatures for planar equilibrium geometries in methyl-substituted oligothiophenes

In recent studies it was demonstrated that temperature-dependent optical spectroscopy is a valuable tool for revealing the differences in the geometries of flexible molecules like oligothiophenes (OTs) in the ground (S0) and first excited (S1) electronic states, by examining the symmetry relations between the absorption and emission spectra: while at low temperature the spectra show mirror symmetry, pointing to planar geometries in S0 and S1, the symmetry relation breaks down at ambient temperature due to thermal population of torsional modes. In the present joint spectroscopic and theoretical study, we demonstrate that this behavior is also observed for di- and tetramethyl-substituted OTs,…