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Singlet exciton optics and phonon-mediated dynamics in oligoacene semiconductor crystals

Organic semiconductor crystals stand out as an efficient, cheap and diverse platform for realising optoelectronic applications. The optical response of these crystals is governed by a rich tapestry of exciton physics. So far, little is known on the phonon-driven singlet exciton dynamics in this class of materials. In this joint theory-experiment work, we combine the fabrication of a high-quality oligoacene semiconductor crystal and characterization via photoluminescence measurements with a sophisticated approach to the microscopic modeling in these crystals. This allows us to investigate singlet exciton optics and dynamics. We predict phonon-bottleneck effects in pentacene crystals, where we find dark excitons acting as crucial phonon-mediated relaxation scattering channels. While the efficient singlet fission in pentacene crystals hampers the experimental observation of this bottleneck effect, we reveal both in theory and experiment a distinct polarisation- and temperature-dependence in absorption and photoluminescence spectra of tetracene crystals, including microscopic origin of exciton linewidths, the activation of the higher Davydov states at large temperatures, and polarisation-dependent quenching of specific exciton resonances. Our joint theory-experiment study represents a significant advance in microscopic understanding of singlet exciton optics and dynamics in oligoacene crystals.