Abstract
Identifying solid substrates that can effectively support donor-acceptor (DA) organic molecules without hindering their intrinsic charge transfer induced by ultraviolet and visible light is crucial for device fabrication and the precise control of photoinduced electric currents. Here, we demonstrate that graphene/SiC(000\(\overline{1}\)) interfaces preserve the optoelectronic response of three DA molecules: 1-amino-4-nitrobenzene, 1-amino-6-nitro-pyrene, and 1-fluoro-6-methoxy-pyrene. Although adsorption induces a substantial renormalization of the molecular quasiparticle gaps, the corresponding charge-transfer excitation energies exhibit relatively small redshift compared to the gas-phase molecules. This is attributed to the substrate-induced screening that reduces both the quasiparticle gap and the electron-hole binding energy, leading to a partial cancellation in the excitation energy. Additionally, we show that the intramolecular charge-transfer excitons retain their character upon adsorption, suggesting graphene/SiC(000\(\overline{1}\)) as a suitable platform for stable physisorption of DA chromophores and for enabling time-resolved studies of early-stage charge migration, opening pathways toward molecular optoelectronic architectures with minimal substrate interference.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the Mare Nostrum Supercomputer of the Red Española de Supercomputación (BSC-RES) and the Centro de Computación Científica de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (CCC-UAM) for providing computational resources. This work has been supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 951224, TOMATTO), the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación MICINN (Spain) through the projects PID2022-138288NB-C31 and PID2022-138288NB-C33, and the “Severo Ochoa" Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D (CEX2020-001039-S).
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M.M. performed the theoretical calculations, analyzed the data, and drafted the initial manuscript. J.A.-C. carried out the experiments under the supervision of N.M. All authors discussed the results. M.M., C.D., and F.M. revised the manuscript. F.M. supervised the project.
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Mansouri, M., Díaz, C., Alcolea-Cerdán, J.T. et al. Adsorption of organic donor-acceptor molecules on graphene/SiC preserves light-induced charge transfer. Commun Chem (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-026-01943-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42004-026-01943-6
